


Osculum Obscenum

by Bitch_In_The_Blue



Series: Nunc Scio Quid Sit Amor [1]
Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: AU from my other fics, Apocalypse, Apologies, Blood and Gore, Burn injuries, Churches & Cathedrals, Consequences, Controlling Behavior, Demon/Human Relationships, Demon/Human Sex, Demonology, Demons, Depression, Desperation, Disembodied Sex, Dream Sex, Drinking to Cope, End of the World, Eventual Smut, Exorcisms, F/M, First Kiss, Hangover, Haunted Houses, Haunting, Horror, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Human/Monster Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Injury, Jealousy, Monsterfucking, Moving, Obsession, Other, Ouija, Overstimulation, Panic, Paranormal, People Will Die, Physical Abuse, Possessive Behavior, Rape/Non-con Elements, Religion, Rioting, Riots, Scary, Self-Harm, Self-Medication, Self-Mutilation, Sensation Play, Sexual Experimentation, Sleep Paralysis, Sleep Paralysis Demon, Teratophilia, Theft, Trevor is a demon, Unhinged woman, Violence, Vomiting, diy exorcism, incubus trevor, mass chaos, new home, this will be creepy, triggering the apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:27:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 20,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23308327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitch_In_The_Blue/pseuds/Bitch_In_The_Blue
Summary: A demon becomes obsessed with a human woman.Most chapters based on an inkotober prompt.
Relationships: Demon Trevor/ Original Female Character, Franklin Clinton/Tracey De Santa, Trevor Philips/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Nunc Scio Quid Sit Amor [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735024
Comments: 18
Kudos: 58





	1. Selfie

A brand new home.   
The first place she’d live after her mom’s place, and it was lovely.  
The unit above a salon in Burton, on Boulevard Del Perro.  
Sure, it smelled a little like acetone, but she’d just keep the windows open. Los Santos always had lovely weather-- except for today. It _would_ rain on the day she was moving cardboard boxes upstairs.  
  
Tommie Vercetti would be twenty seven in September. Since it was only March, she had plenty of time to pull the place together and plan a party at home for her friends and family to celebrate with her.  
For now, another celebration.  
  
_“I wish I was there to help you move in,”_ her mother told her over video chat. Lita had been sent to Las Venturas for business, but was expected to be back by the weekend.  
“I can handle it on my own,” Tommie said, carrying the phone with her as she moved odds and ends throughout the unit.  
The acetone smell just wouldn’t go away even though she’d opened every window in the place.  
“At least until I get furniture,” Tommie continued and set up her bathroom. A soap dispenser, shower curtain, toothbrush, toothpaste, her makeup bag on the counter, and her other toiletries still in the box outside of the bathtub. “Then you can come over and help me put it all together.”  
_“Ooh, are you excited to go furniture shopping?_ ” Lita smiled.  
“As excited as someone with only a little money can be,” Tommie chuckled and headed back out into the main living area- an open floor plan with a small kitchen. Tiny, but she was to live by herself. Maybe she’d get a dog.   
No, not with that acetone smell…  
Fuck, it was awful. “I gotta do something about the smell,” she said. “I’m right over a nail salon and it’s fucking _intense._ ”  
Lita grimaced. _“Are you windows open?”_  
“Yeah,” Tommie nodded, looking over at the set of windows that faced the street. “They’re all…”  
_Closed._  
“Huh…”   
_“What’s wrong, baby?”_ _  
_ “I thought I opened all these,” Tommie carried her phone to the windows and began to open them one by one.   
_“Must’ve missed them,”_ Lita shrugged. Tommie could overhear Ken Rosenberg’s voice calling Lita to a meeting. _“Coming!”_ She called back, then turned back to her screen. _“I’ve gotta go, Tommie. Can I call you back later?”_  
“Yeah, definitely,” Tommie smiled and opened up the last window. Already much better air in the place. “Love you!”  
_“Love you too! Bye!”_   
The call ended with a dull beep, and Tommie sighed. Feeling alone in the apartment once more.  
What now?  
Fuck it, new apartment selfie for her social media accounts.  
  
She used the dimmed natural lighting coming from the windows, angling her camera toward herself.   
A quick spruce up for her hair and making sure her eyeliner wasn’t smudgy, aaaaannnddddd….  
_Click!_  
Her phone emitted a digitized shutter noise, and she assessed the picture.  
Blurry. Kinda dark.  
That’s weird… It looked fine _in_ the camera, but the snapshot came out bad. Maybe the white balance was off.  
Attempt #2.  
Same problem.  
“... Fuckin’ camera,” Tommie muttered under her breath, deciding to swipe some filters over it to see if it would help improve quality.  
Rainbow, kaleidoscope, stars, hearts…  
Her thumb froze over the screen when she reached the high-contrast filter. Dread spreading through her veins in a split second. All traces of her smile gone.  
A blur behind her in the photo was now dark enough to have shape.  
The camera had been angled downward, obscuring the top half-- but it looked like legs.   
… It was just the filter. It had to be.  
But even now, thumb swiping left over and over to replace the filter, she could still make out the shape now that she knew it was there.   
_What the fuck_ _was_ _that?_ _  
_ She turned, trying to find the source of the shadow in the room. But there wasn’t one there.  
She glanced at her door. The lock was still engaged.  
  
She was alone, so why didn’t she feel alone anymore?  
  
The sound of laughter outside pulled her attention back to reality, and she looked out the window to see a couple getting out of a cab across the street, laughing together as they ran through the rain and into a bar.  
Tommie shook her head at herself. All worked up over nothing.


	2. Rain

She woke when she felt weight on the foot of the bed.  
Frozen with what felt like panic.  
Tommie was afraid to open her eyes. Maybe it would stop if she pretended it wasn’t happening. She’d heard of sleep paralysis before, but she’d never _had_ it.  
She kept absolutely still; but she wasn’t sure if it was by choice or part of the paralysis.  
She felt the whole of her body be dragged about an inch toward the foot of the bed in a jerking motion.  
 _Stop it._  
And then there was nothing else to remember. She slept through the rest of the night, undisturbed.  
  
As unsettling as the sleep paralysis had been, Tommie had managed to rationalize it so she could carry on with her day.  
It was her first time living alone.  
Seeing the shadow in her picture had made her nervous and now she was being paranoid.  
She’d seen too many horror movies like this.  
Etc.  
The fact that hadn't seen the shadow again in any pictures since day one was assurance enough that she was alone in the apartment. The windows stayed open from then on, untouched.  
  
“Y’know, I was kind of under the impression that it didn’t rain much in Los Santos,” Tommie said, sprawled out on her mattress. Early in the morning on the third day in her new apartment. "Given that I've lived here my whole life and haven't seen much more than a light drizzle. But it's just coming _down_ today."  
Logan, her boyfriend, smiled through the screen at that and nodded in agreement. _"And it's supposed to be_ all _day. You gotta go anywhere?"  
_ Tommie sat upright in her bed, having finally assembled her frame the night before. Phone in hand. Video chats at least once a day with either Logan or her mom. "Nah, not really. I'm off today, so it's some shopping at most," she ran a hand through her hair. "I'm gonna just unpack some more, sort stuff out, maybe check out the neighborhood."  
 _"In the rain?"  
_ "Yup, in the rain. I'm gearing up to go get some breakfast now."  
 _"I hope you have your umbrella unpacked,"_ Logan smiled and watched her get dressed on the edge of her bed. _"Nice bra, by the way."  
_ "Oh, _this_ old thing?" She teased through a wide smile. “Maybe I’ll let you have a better view later.”  
Logan chuckled _“How long do I have to wai-”_  
Tommie’s phone glitched, and the chat disconnected.  
In fact, the phone turned entirely off  
“The fuck!?” She hissed, exasperated as she plugged the device in. It had been at 60% when the call started. Why did it drain so fast!? “Ugh,” Tommie groaned and started the phone when it had sufficient power, pulling on a shirt and pants to resume getting ready for the day.  
The device pinged when startup was complete. A text, from Logan.  
 _“What happened?”  
_ Battery was now at 61% _  
_She began to write that she didn't know.  
  
 _SLAM!_ _  
__  
_Tommie let slip a startled yelp at the sound, head jerking in the direction of her bedroom door.  
It had slammed shut.  
“Fuck _me…_ ” She sighed, rubbing her eyes and calming herself with a deep breath. The windows were open. The pressure difference must’ve slammed the door shut. She hadn’t felt any gusts of wind…  
 _Stop it,_ she told herself. After seeing the shadow on her first day, she was just being paranoid. It was a normal apartment, rent was cheap because it smells like chemicals, not because it was fucking _haunted_. That was ridiculous. People lived here _before_ her. She kept reminding herself that she was just being paranoid...  
  
It was a relief to be out of the apartment for a while as Tommie handled some errands. Picking up breakfast, getting groceries, buying cleaning supplies and storage bins, and picking out some small decorations to make the place more homey.  
The rest of the day was generally quiet. The rain had come and gone every so often throughout the day, and was predicted to continue into early the next morning.  
Tommie hummed along to her music as it played over the sound of rainfall, while she cleaned and organized. Small decorations placed here and there. She even bought a small, three inch aloe plant to keep in the center window of her living room.  
Some of the rain blew into the apartment through the open windows, so she closed them all most of the way. Just enough to keep airflow, just enough to keep the rain out.  
  
And as soon as the apartment was sufficiently clean, Tommie decided to take a nice, hot shower.  
Steam accumulated in the room quickly, and she felt nice and relaxed as she got clean. Just another day or so before she went back to work. In the meantime, nothing but chillin’ out.  
Maybe she’d order pizza tonight. Get a little drunk. Just be lazy. She earned that, right? Definitely did.  
After she left the bathroom, she went straight to her bedroom to get dressed in her favorite soft pajamas.  
It was a pizza and movie kind of night and it was just for her in her comfy clothes!  
  
When she reached her kitchen, she grabbed a can of beer from her fridge and began to place an online order with her phone.  
Medium, extra sauce, no mushrooms-  
  
 _WHOOSH_ .  
 _THUMP._  
  
Tommie’s head jerked in the direction of the sound. The wind had blown through the narrow opening of the center window and pushed her plant off of the ledge.  
The pot slowly rolled on its side in a circle, spilling soil all the while.  
“ _Goddammit_ ,” Tommie started over toward the mess, watching the terracotta pot roll.  
The dirt fanned out in a perfect circle-  
Two gaps, about shoulder width apart.  
  
Tommie froze when she saw it happen, the primal sense of quiet terror branched out from her core- just as before.  
There was nothing there.  
But there were two clear footprints where _something_ she couldn’t see was standing. The air felt heavy.  
Tommie couldn’t blink, eyes burning and straining as she tried to make herself see whatever was there. There had to be an explanation...  
The pot finished a complete rotation, and the last of the soil spilled into the previously gapped spots. No explanation as to why.  
Something was there.


	3. First Contact

"Thanks for having me over," Tommie felt her body go slack on Tracey De Santa's bed. Finally at ease now that she was out of the apartment.  
Tracey had already been sprawled on the mattress next to her, attention on her laptop. "You sounded really scared on the phone, are you okay?"  
"Yeah, just--" this was embarrassing. "I think my apartment's haunted."  
Tracey looked over at her, dubious expression.   
"I'm serious," Tommie insisted. "Weird shit's been going on since day one. And I can't move out, my lease has me locked in for a year."  
Tracey's brows furrowed. "What's been happening?"  
"I don't know how to explain it." Tommie wanted to show her the pictures with the blur- but they were deleted that very night so she would stop fixating on them. "There was this shadow in a picture I took and it looked like someone was standing behind me."  
Tracey sighed and turned back to her computer. Tommie was overreacting, she had to be. "Y'know, Rosa. I never really pictured _you_ to be superstitious."  
Tommie shook her head. "There's no way I'm just being superstitious. Last night I--" Fuck it. Tracey wouldn't be sold on the picture or the sleep paralysis- let alone the footprints in the dirt. They could all be easily written off. "I'll show you. Tomorrow we'll go back to my place and I'll show you what's going on."  
"Fuck that, I don't wanna be alone with a ghost."  
"So bring Franklin and Lamar!" Tommie urged. "What makes you think _I_ wanna be there alone?"  
  
Tommie had invited her friends over the following day under the guise of needing help assembling some new furniture.   
All the while, she kept attentive to their demeanor. If it showed its presence to them, they’d react.  
But she didn’t see any indications that it made itself known.  
Did she imagine it…?  
“See? You were so so worried about nothing!” Tracey beamed, pouring herself a glass of the wine she brought while Franklin and Lamar positioned the TV on the wall mount.  
“What were you worried about?” Franklin peered over his shoulder at Tommie- who also poured herself some wine.  
Tommie shook her head. “It’s nothing-”  
“She thought the place was haunted,” Tracey playfully nudged her. Making Tommie’s face red.  
" _Haunted?_ ” Lamar looked over. Surprised she’d be so superstitious. “What makes you think it’s haunted?”  
“I just-” This felt stupid. _Damn it, Trace..._ “-Things have just been _weird_ , y’know? Like beginning-stages-of-a-horror-movie weird.”  
“It's your first time livin’ alone,” Franklin noted, resuming centering the TV. Ever calm and rational. “Give it like a week.”  
“Yeeaaaahhh,” Lamar slowly agreed, uncertain but trying not to seem worried. More superstitious than his dear friend. “I’m gonna go.”  
“Don’t be such a baby, Lamar,” Tracey teased. “Ghosts aren’t even real.”  
“ _Demons_ fuckin’ might be,” Lamar retorted.  
“Okay, _that’s_ paranoia,” Tommie pointed to Lamar. “I’m not the one talking about _demons_. I’m saying weird shit’s happening. Maybe it’s not even a ghost- or a demon, maybe it’s… Uh…” She couldn’t come up with an explanation.  
“Wanna ask it?” Tracey piped in.  
“ _Ask it?_ ” Lamar blinked.  
Tracey nodded. “Yeah with, like, a ouija board or something.”  
Tommie’s expression matched Lamar’s. “Do I _look_ like someone who owns a ouija board?”  
Tracey shrugged and picked up an empty, flattened box from the pile on the kitchen floor as well as a box cutter. “You can make ‘em out of cardboard-”  
“Nuh-uh,” Lamar headed toward the door. “I ain’t fuckin’ with none of that white people shit.”  
“C’mon man,” Franklin stopped him, still trying to find the center of the wall for the TV. “It’s a fuckin’ piece of cardboard. They mass produce that shit in _China_ and sell it in game shops.”  
“I’ve seen the movies,” Lamar retorted. “I _ain’t_ gonna be the one to fuck with it.”  
“Dude, it’s not like we even _have_ a board to fuck with in the first place,” Tommie said, exasperated.  
“We do now,” Tracey interjected, having cut one piece of the box into a rectangle and another into a doughnut shape. She picked up a nearby permanent marker off of the counter and started to write out the alphabet on the larger piece.  
“Tracey, that’s _garbage_ ,” Tommie insisted. “You think a ghost is gonna wanna talk to us through a magic marker and a shitty box that _just_ had couch pieces in it?”  
“Well, if there’s no ghost, it won’t talk to us through _anything_ , right?” Tracey defended, tossing the marker aside when she finished writing a large ‘GOODBYE’ in the bottom center of the makeshift board. “Then when you see nothing’s here, you’ll feel better. Okay?”  
  
Lamar wanted no part of this.  
So he stood by, hands off, and watched from what he determined to be a safe distance while Tracey, Franklin, and Tommie stood around the board at the kitchen counter.  
“Anyone ever done this before?” Tommie asked.  
“No, but I’ve seen it in movies,” Tracey shrugged. “How hard could it be? The biggest rule is to always say goodbye at the end. In case you’re worried about being thorough.”  
“ _Fuckin’ say goodbye_ ,” Lamar insisted from across the room.   
  
Tracey ignored him and placed her finger on the planchette piece along with the other two in the group.  
Franklin looked to Tommie to get things started. “Since you’re the one with questions, you should probably be the one to ask 'em.”   
Goddamn it this was a terrible idea. Talking to it was just gonna piss it off-- if it was really there. Tommie wasn't even sure what to start with. "Uh… Hello?"  
The planchette budged to the right side of the board, and Tracey gasped. Franklin visibly stiffened.  
Tommie felt sick with nerves.  
" _Nope_ ," Lamar completely exited the apartment, deciding to wait outside for this to be over.  
The smaller cardboard piece continued to move, slowly, until a letter was in the center.   
  
_R.  
  
_ Then it kept moving.  
  
 _O.  
_ _S.  
_ _A.  
  
_ _'ROSA'  
  
_ Tommie felt her body seize up with fear.   
How did it know her nickname? Nobody had said it in the last forty minutes since before they even arrived.   
"Very funny, Rosa," Tracey sighed.   
It took a long second for Tommie to get her voice to work. " _I didn't-_ "  
"You had _me_ fuckin' scared for a sec," Franklin moved away from the board and rubbed his hands over his face.  
Tracey and Franklin were now certain that she had been playing a prank on them.   
Tracey moved the planchette herself to the 'GOODBYE' and they stepped away from the board. "For real, you're a good actress. You seemed freaked out yesterday and everything."  
Tommie opened her mouth to speak.   
"Shit," Tracey added as she checked her phone for the time. "We gotta go. My mom was gonna take us out for lunch."  
"Good, I'm fuckin' hungry," Franklin yawned, heading for the door. "See you later, Rosa."  
"Byeeeee Rosa!" Tracey followed behind him, arm wrapping around his as they left the unit.  
  
Tommie was alone again.   
  
She turned her gaze to the cardboard ouija board on the counter, then added it to the garbage pile. She picked up as much cardboard as she could and carried it outside to the dumpster behind the building.   
Taking an extended moment to gather her thoughts.   
The longer she spent outside, the better she felt.   
She would have to go back inside. She couldn't just _stay_ gone. She couldn't afford to just stay at a hotel- and her mom would have the same reaction as her friends if she stayed over.  
She had work the next morning.  
Maybe the thing wouldn't harass her if she just let it be.   
… Maybe she should pick up religion and ask the church what to do.   
That was likely her best idea. Churches could get ghosts out of a house, right?  
  
Tommie planned out a visit to the church in Rockford Hills after work tomorrow as she headed back upstairs. The nail salon on the first floor was playing bubbly pop music that faded into silence as she entered her unit.  
The sound of plastic falling onto the floor at her side made her jump, and she found the magic marker lying on the floor. 

Her eyes moved to the section of wall that led to the bathroom and bedroom.  
Her breath hitched, and felt like her heart stopped when she saw writing on the wall.  
  
 _ROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSA  
  
_ The name had been scrawled over the wall so many times that it overlapped into a giant scribble in the middle.  
Tommie picked up the marker and assessed the wall. It wanted to communicate something; or else it wouldn't have done this… Right?  
She turned the uncapped marker in her hand and brought it to the wall. She'd heard of ghosts using people's hands to write in movies. It was called 'automatic writing'.  
  
"Hello…?" She quietly asked again. This was a bad idea this was a bad idea this was a bad idea- "What do you want?"  
Nothing. Her hand didn't move. Was she supposed to look away?  
Tommie closed her eyes and asked again. She felt like she was shaking. "What do you want?"  
She was absolutely shaking now that she heard the squeak of the marker tip moving against the wall.   
She opened her eyes when it stopped.

 _ROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSA  
  
_ Not the answer she wanted. She felt her skin crawling.  
What the fuck did this mean?  
She moved to another section of wall and closed her eyes again. "Do you have a name?"   
  
_YES.  
  
_ She closed her eyes again. "Can you tell me?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Can I _give_ you a name?"   
  
Silence for a brief, hesitant moment, then the marker squeaked against the wall, and once again she waited for it to stop before reading.   
_  
YES.  
  
_ She closed her eyes again. First name that came to mind was... "Trevor? Is Trevor okay?"  
Another ' _YES_ ' was there when she opened her eyes again. 


	4. Sad

Tommie became aware that she was being dragged an inch down the bed again.   
And then again.   
_Stop it, Trevor_ .  
She wasn't even sure if her eyes were open, but she could see the shape at the foot of the bed. Tall, masculine. Standing with its arms at its sides. Tommie understood that it was staring at her; unblinking, despite having no facial features. Blacker than the room in the late hour.   
It moved around the frame, stepping silently until it stood at her side.   
  
Tommie didn’t remember the rest of the night, again.   
Every time she blacked out, she assumed it meant that ‘Trevor’ disappeared and she was able to fall back into peaceful sleep.   
The dream itself was ingrained into her memory throughout the rest of the following day.   
Work was long. And tiring, given the poor quality of sleep.  
  
When it was over, she drove to the church in Rockford Hills- and arrived just as a service was letting out.   
She hesitated when the time came to get out of her car.   
Was this a bad idea?   
_Just do it_ , she told herself. _Just fucking do it.  
_ She exited her car and strode up to the church doors, where members of the congregation were still talking with lingering churchgoers.  
Tommie noticed the pastor staring in her direction, as if she were something ominous.  
No… Not _at_ her, but _around_ her.   
"Hi," he awkwardly greeted as she approached him. "Can I bother you for a minute?"   
  
It took about five minutes to sit down somewhere quiet and describe what she'd experienced- down to the name the ghost had accepted.  
"You've given it a _name?_ "  
"Well, yeah," Tommie frowned. "I thought he would ease up if I let him communicate, and I just didn't know what to call him. He couldn't tell me his name."  
"There is no 'him' or 'her' for an abomination. They are not made in the image of God as we are," he gave her a look she didn't like. "It didn't tell you its real name because that would give you power over it. By giving it a name yourself, you've _given_ it power. You've solidified its existence in this world by humanizing it."  
Tommie's stomach was in knots. She felt sick.   
"Have you ever been to the church before?" He asked.  
"No." Tommie felt like he was staring over her shoulder. She was nauseous ever since she stepped into the building.   
"Have you been baptized?"  
Tommie shook her head. "No."  
"Have you practiced witchcraft?"  
"No?" Depends on what was considered 'witchcraft' nowadays. Crystal collecting, tea drinking, smoking weed… Or ritualistic sex on a pentagram drawn with goat blood.  
Fuck, she didn't feel good...   
He stared hard at her. Like he was trying to process something on her aura, rather than her expression. His eyes kept flicking from hers, to beside her head.   
She had to ask. "What do you keep looking at?"   
"I think the best course of action would be an exorcism," he ignored her question. "And for you to be baptized, to keep-"  
"Wait, hold the fuck up-- an _exorcism?_ " Tommie blinked. "I came here for a _ghost_ , but you're talking like this is a _demon_ -"  
Her stomach lurched, and she quickly grabbed the trash can beside the pastor's desk and vomited.   
For some reason; she expected blood. But it was just her lunch.   
Fuck…  
"Can you help get rid of it?" She wanly asked, sitting up slowly to make the room stop spinning.  
"Its hold on you is already too strong for me to help you," he said. "I don't know what you did to get its attention so strongly focused on you so quickly, but I'm afraid it's too late."  
  
The nausea had subsided by the time she was driving home.   
Mind racing, yet unable to form a coherent thought. The entire situation was so unsettling that she just couldn't process it despite seeing the evidence for herself.  
As soon as she got to the apartment, she went straight to her bedroom and shoved clothing into a backpack.   
Feeling eyes burning into her back all the while, refusing to look over her shoulder, Tommie hauled her bag over her shoulder and left the apartment as quickly as possible.  
  
When she arrived at Logan's apartment, she rang his doorbell and tried to make herself appear normal as she waited.  
Shaky hands trying to fix her hair just before the door opened.  
Logan answered in his jeans- no shirt. "Rosa," he greeted. He looked surprised to see her; and not pleasantly so. "Hey-- I didn't know you were coming over, I thought you'd send a heads up text or something."  
"Surprise," Tommie gave him an awkward smile. "I figured it's been a long time since I came over, so…"  
She saw motion over his shoulder. His bathroom door was cracked open just enough to where she could see the mirror above the sink. Where there she could see a woman, already naked, turning on the shower.  
When Logan heard the water running, his expression contorted into a pained wince. Caught.   
"Friend of yours?" Tommie asked pointedly, somehow more crushed than she had already been.   
Logan opened his mouth to speak.  
"No," she interrupted, raising a finger in warning to him. " _Fuck you_ . I don't wanna hear it."   
She turned to leave.  
"Hang on-" he grabbed her by the arm.   
“Let go of my arm,” Tommie warned.   
“You can’t-”   
“I said _let go!_ ” Tommie snapped.   
Logan withdrew his hand with a pained yelp, turning and curling over. Cradling his hand close to his body in a panic.   
Tommie’s brows furrowed, and moved around him to see that his hand was blistered, red, bloody.   
Second degree burns that weren’t there before he touched her.   
Before Logan could turn his attention back to her, Tommie took off running back to her car.   
  
When she came home, more exhausted than when she left, she dropped her backpack onto the hallway floor as she headed for her bedroom.   
She dropped onto her mattress, fully clothed, and curled into a ball, facing the wall.   
  
No one who believed her.   
No one who could help her.   
Cheated.   
Isolated.   
_Trapped_.  
  
The weight of the situation hit her in that moment, and she felt her eyes sting with tears.   
Weight on the bed, just behind her.   
Tommie forgot to breathe.   
Weight against the side of her body. The feeling of a hot breath against the back of her neck.   
Too afraid to move, too afraid to blink, Tommie’s entire form trembled against the mattress, tears rolling across her face and wetting her pillow.   
Trevor made no move to hurt her, only make her aware of his presence.   
The weight that had been on her side moved upward until it was at her head. Reminiscent of fingers running through her hair as it moved back down.   
Almost like it was trying to comfort her.   
“Stop it,” she whispered, voice breaking, tears free-flowing. “Stop it, Trevor.”   
The disembodied touch withdrew, but the weight on the bed didn’t leave her side.


	5. Stargazing

"Thanks for coming, I've been feeling pretty homesick," Tommie sighed, laying fresh beige paint on the wall.    
“Home’s been so empty without you there,” Lita sympathetically agreed. “You could always come visit. You know that, right?”   
“I know,” Tommie replied, glancing over at the hallway wall. It was the only completed wall so far. She’d painted over it before her mom came over. She had to hide the writing before  _ anyone  _ could come over.   
Two weeks had passed since Tommie had been turned away by the church.   
Since then, phone calls had glitched out, her phone would spontaneously turn off, and her laptop would quickly lose battery power. Trevor had seemed  _ jealous _ of anything that could take her attention from him- and she had to ask him not to touch her things every time.  
He seemed to respect her requests.   
“I see you got a white board,” Lita noted, pulling Tommie’s attention.   
“Yeah, just so I can make to-do lists and stuff,” Tommie lied.   
Its sole purpose would be to communicate with Trevor. Without trashing the apartment. She just hadn’t had the chance to tell him about it yet- given that she started painting from the moment she got home from work.   
“Look at you getting all organized!” Lita beamed, reapplying paint to her roller. “You seem like you’re doing great, I’m so proud!”   
“It’s been  _ great _ ,” Tommie didn’t want her mother to worry about her. That, and, keeping Trevor happy kept him from making any aggressive moves.   
Lita stood on top of the stepladder so she could reach near the ceiling. “How’s Logan doing?”   
Tommie heard the bedroom door fall shut.   
Lita jumped. “What was that?”   
“The wind blew it shut,” Tommie answered. “... Logan and I aren’t talking. Turns out he was seeing somebody else.”   
Lita paused and looked over at her. “Jesus… That’s awful! When did you find out?”   
“It’s been a few days,” Tommie replied. “I’m over it.”   
“Good,” Lita nodded, still looking concerned. “Good, I’m glad… Are you gonna be seeing anyone else?”   
Tommie considered how Trevor had caused Logan’s hand to burn. “I don’t know yet.”   
  
After the living room and kitchen were fully painted, Lita stuck around and helped Tommie make dinner.    
They ate together; and for the first time since moving, Tommie was able to smile and laugh like she still lived at home.   
  
The smiles disappeared as soon as Lita left.   
Tommie was alone in the apartment again- with Trevor.   
Nothing broken, nothing vandalized.   
“... Thanks for letting me see my mom,” she hesitantly said as she moved between the rooms. Trying to find some indication of where he was. He seemed to move of his own free will- could demons possessing a person  _ do _ that? “I-- I missed her a lot.”   
The air around her felt heavy again, and she was aware that Trevor was beside her.    
She felt the same disembodied fingers running through her hair.   
Strangely, an affectionate gesture.   
It was weird.   
“I got this-” She changed the subject, picking up the white board from where it leaned against the back of her couch. She moved it to the kitchen counter where the dry-erase markers were lying in their packaging. “-So you could talk.” She removed the red marker from the plastic and uncapped it, closing her eyes as she brought the tip to the board. “We can’t use the walls anymore, okay?”  
  
_ OK _ _   
_ _   
_ “Did  _ you _ burn Logan?”   
  
_ YES _ _   
_ _   
_ “Why’d you do that?”   
  
_ HURT _ _   
_ _   
_ “You wanted to hurt him?”   
  
_ YES _ _   
_ _   
_ “Are you gonna hurt  _ me? _ ”   
  
_ NO _   
  
“Why not?”   
  
_ MINE _   
  
Tommie felt her stomach turn icy once more.   
‘Mine’.  
'Mine' how?  
  
Every night over the next few days, Tommie felt Trevor lying in bed beside her at night. Unmoving. Not touching her.   
She faced away from him every time- unsure of what she would see if she were to look. And not wanting to know.   
  
When Friday came, Tracey invited her out to go bar hopping with Lamar and Franklin.  
And while she was having  _ so much fun _ being home alone with Trevor every night, she decided it was time to go out and have some fun.   
"I'm going out tonight," she told him, standing at the door and speaking out to the empty apartment. Dressed up, makeup done with more effort than usual. "I'll be back, okay?"  
No answer.    
"I'm not going home with anybody or bringing them here…"  
Nothing in reply.   
"I'll see you later."  
She excused herself from the apartment and locked the door on her way out.   
  
Her cab soon picked her up and dropped her at Tequi-La-La where she met up with her friends in line.   
After a few rounds of drinks there, they moved on to a small dive bar further down the road.   
Location by location, the group steadily became more intoxicated- and Tommie forgot about her problems for a while.   
On the way to the next bar, Tommie followed along as Lamar led them to a hole-in-the-wall he liked for the food and cheap beers. Tommie fell to the back of the group as she slowed to set up her ride home.   
She stopped just behind her group when they reached a crosswalk. Traffic steadily moving while they waited for the walk signal. Music from multiple sources around them. Bright lights everywhere to impress the tourists.    
A loud, abrupt laugh made Tommie’s head turn in the direction of the source- somewhere behind her.   
She was turning forward again when she caught sight of her reflection in a blackened window.   
While there were too many people moving about to  _ really _ see herself in detail, she could still pick herself out in the darkly mirrored image.   
A separate figure at her side. Tall, masculine, standing with its arms at its sides.    
Slowly, she watched it raise an arm until its abnormally long fingers spread into a half-wave.  
Tommie hesitantly mirrored the gesture.  
She looked to her side, seeing no one there who could match the reflection.   
She felt heavier when she looked back to the window, but the shape wasn’t there anymore.   
“Rosa, c’mon,” Lamar called.   
She turned back to the intersection to see that the walk signal was already counting down.    
“Coming!” Tommie glanced over her shoulder again at the reflection, not even able to find herself in the throng anymore as she crossed the street.   
  
The group had walked all of the way to Vinewood Boulevard over the next hour, and Tracey noted the names underfoot. Some of the stars were new, some heavily graffitied.   
Tommie, however, was watching her reflection in every mirrored surface they passed.   
And Trevor’s shape beside her.


	6. Drunk

The cab seemed to spin whenever she closed her eyes.   
Tommie put in what little energy she had into keeping them open. She wanted to stay awake long enough to get home- then she would take the bathroom trash can to bed and try not to puke before falling asleep.   
  
It wasn't particularly easy, and she was wobbly when she finally got out of the taxi to go upstairs; but she arrived home safely.   
Spotting someone standing across the street- seeming to observe her as they smoked a cigarette.  
Tommie didn't really like that. So she quickly got inside and made sure to lock her door behind her.   
She thought crime was decently low this close to Rockford Hills. But it was still Los Santos. Anything could happen…  
  
She shook off the negative thought and kicked off her shoes on the way to the bathroom. Darkly, barely lit by the moonlight coming in through the tiny, rectangular window by the ceiling. She left the lights off- they'd just hurt her eyes at this point.   
She sleepily grumbled to herself as she washed her makeup off in the sink. The cold water felt at least a little sobering. Her stomach wasn't as angry with her now. The world felt steadier.   
Thank fuck!  
Tommie pulled her hair tie off of her wrist and twisted her long, dark hair into a bun, lifting her gaze to the mirror.  
  
The shape of a man just behind her. Just as before.   
She froze, watching his head tilt to the side when he realized she noticed him.   
"Trevor…"  
His hand slowly raised into the same wave.  
Tommie slowly reached for the light switch.   
Trevor's hand lowered back to his side, and his head turned to face her directly.  
Tommie flipped the light switch, eyes straining to adjust as she stared at the mirror.   
Nothing behind her. Nothing beside her.   
She turned the lights off again.  
He was still there. Still facing her.   
"C'mon man," Tommie muttered. "I'm too drunk for this…"   
Maybe the intoxication helped- maybe she finally got used to him. But she left the bathroom to lie in bed.   
No longer nauseous or spinny, just tired of everything being _too much_.  
She shed her outer layers of clothing and dropped into the bed before cocooning herself in blankets. Phone in hand, looking over pictures taken that night and debating on which ones to share online.   
She caught movement- and saw Trevor's shadow on the wall.   
Just standing beside her bed. Head tilted downward, watching her.   
" _Well?_ " She asked expectantly. Stupid idea, but she wasn't sober enough to care.  
Was he going to steal her soul or not?   
He only stood there, looming over her.   
Tommie kept her eyes open for as long as she could, watching him.  
Whatever happens, happens.   
  
She woke up the next morning still facing the wall. Trevor's shadow had gone in the meantime.  
Unharmed, alive-- and as far as she knew, still having her soul.   
And a little hung over.   
But it was Saturday, and she wouldn't have to work.  
Tommie got out of bed and immediately headed for the kitchen to re-hydrate.   
The white board on the counter had been blank when she left last night.   
  
_ROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSAROSA  
  
_Trevor must have scribbled away at it while she was asleep.   
Why did he keep specifically doing _this?  
_"Good morning to you too," she grumbled and got a glass of water. She felt an instant difference when she drank. She thought breakfast might help, so she turned to the fridge to scavenge. "How'd _you_ sleep? Do you _even_ sleep?"  
  
Squeaking on the white board.  
Tommie turned around and saw the marker moving.   
  
Writing out 'NO'.  
  
He could move it while she looked now. Did that mean he _was_ getting stronger after all?  
She flashed back to the priest telling her she'd given him power by humanizing him.   
What else was he capable of now?  
  
She moved closer toward the board, erasing it with the side of her hand.   
"Are you getting stronger because of me?"  
  
_YES  
  
_"What are you gonna do with that?"  
  
No response.   
  
"... _Fucking_ \--" Tommie rubbed her eyes. Giving up and turning back to the fridge. More annoyed than put off. "Fine. Don't tell me then. But if you _do_ kill me, just make it fucking quick."  
Tommie heard scribbling as she peeked around the fridge for some breakfast, expecting more of her name being written down.  
His usual idle response.  
But when she turned back, the entirety of the board was filled with a large ' _NO'.  
_Tommie's nerves fired up again, and she felt the same dread in her veins.   
She watched the board be erased with the swipe of an invisible hand. The marker lifted on its own once more and began to write.   
Tommie watched anxiously.  
  
_WONT KILL  
__WONT HURT  
  
_She didn't want to know the answer, but she found herself asking anyway. " _Why?_ "  
  
Again, the board spelled _'MINE'_.  
But didn't stop.  
  
_MINE FOREVER  
  
_Tommie stared at the words, arms going slack at her sides as she felt the weight of the words and what they insinuated.  
Forever. For however long the rest of her life would be.   
She felt fingers through her hair again. A caress of her cheek, moving down to the side of her neck and dropping off at her chest.   
Trevor would be with her until she died. 


	7. Camera

The following month was a blur of getting drunk, being hungover over at work, and repeating every day.  
Tommie had discovered how effectively numbing alcohol was; and how much it helped her to forget about the entity she lived with.   
Being in public helped too. Trevor _never_ acted out with a crowd.   
Nightly trips to the dive bar down the street helped her feel like the world around her was, at the very least, still normal.  
  
Today began the same as the others.  
Tommie’s head pounding with a hangover as she rolled out of bed to take a shower.  
She looked over her phone’s notifications on the way- seeing one from an online shop stating that her order was out for delivery.  
… What order?  
Tommie loaded her emails to go through them; and eventually found that she’d purchased a security camera a few days earlier-- likely while drunk. Probably thinking it was a good idea to monitor the apartment and make sure Trevor’s activity was documented.  
In case something were to happen to her.  
  
Tommie’s shift at work ended in the late afternoon, and she found the package sitting outside her door when she came home.  
Two cameras, and apparently she’d bought two SD cards to save the recordings to.  
She set one up inside of her bedroom, aimed at her bed.  
And the other in the kitchen, angled out to face the living room.  
While it wasn’t exactly appealing to have cameras on you at all times, it was necessary this time. If she died, she wanted evidence left behind.  
  
Fuck, that was a scary thought…  
  
When evening came, Tommie went out to the bar again.  
Drinks were decently cheap, and the bartender recognized her and her usual order by then.  
After a few drinks and a chat with the bartender, the last shot was on the house.  
Tommie decided that was enough to have a pleasant night and headed home.  
Where she dropped onto the couch, turned on the TV with the intention of watching, and fell asleep a few minutes into a trashy reality show.  
  
Tommie slept heavy when she drank.  
Every night, all night. She hadn’t had any sleep paralysis dreams over the last month or so, since she started this pattern.  
Rolling over, she slowly sat upright to find herself on top of her sheets. No wonder she was chilly…  
“Fuuuck,” she muttered under her breath as flecks of daylight reached her eyes from around the edges of her curtains. She reached for her phone on her nightstand- but didn’t find it.  
Shit, did she forget it at the bar?  
Tommie left her bed in search for the device. It wasn’t on the floor.  
She realized she could overhear something in the living room while she was searching under her bed.  
Tommie cautiously moved to her bedroom door- left open.  
She always slept with it closed.  
She heard the TV.  
  
Tommie was grateful that she kept a knife with her.  
Even now, she found it folded shut, lying in her sheets where it dislodged from the back of her pants while she slept.  
She clicked it open, slowly making her way out of the bedroom. Noiselessly coming to the living room and breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that no one was there.  
She just forgot to turn off the TV last night when she…  
Went to bed…?  
But she fell asleep on the couch…  
The throw pillows were both on one side, and her phone was lying on the floor right beside where her reach would’ve been.  
  
The white board she'd mounted on the wall read ' _GOOD MORNING_ '.  
"Yeah…" She uneasily answered and picked up her phone. "Good morning to you too…"  
The cameras were connected to her wifi. She could view recordings from her phone.  
Three motion notifications.  
One was assumed to be Trevor writing out his greeting earlier this morning.  
Another was likely to be when she got home last night.  
What was the one in the middle?  
Tommie loaded the clip, finding herself asleep on the couch with the TV on. Comfortable and still in the dark.  
The camera glitched and she could make out Trevor's shape interrupting the light from the TV for a brief second.  
Tommie's sleeping form was slowly lifted from the couch, held up in a bridal carry position.  
The camera glitched again, and she couldn't see the rest of the capture. The file was corrupted.  
She checked the bedroom camera for the continuation- and found herself lying in her bed. Blissfully unaware that she'd been moved.  
Only one other file in the bedroom; and it was just her waking up just minutes ago.  
Trevor put her in her bed.  
What for?  
  
The morning greeting on the white board stared back at her.  
"Why did you move me?" She asked, trying to sound more curious than worried.  
She watched as a marker uncapped and began to write.  
  
 _'COMFORT'_  
  
He wanted her to be comfortable.  
"Oh…" What the fuck?? "Thanks…"  
Since when do demons care if someone sleeps well?  
  
Since then, Tommie had tried to stay out of the apartment all day.  
Trevor was getting stronger, and she didn't know how to stop it or control it. All she knew was that he still never did anything outside of the apartment's walls. The outside was a safer place.  
She had breakfast with her mom, met up with Tracey to get coffee, met with Lamar to smoke and get lunch, visited Franklin and went along on a long walk with him and Chop.  
Tommie knew he could sense Trevor. The rottweiler growled and barked viciously at something near Tommie when she first arrived.  
At least the dog believed her…  
  
With no one else to visit, Tommie had to find something else to fill the night.  
She'd go out on her own for dinner and then…  
The bar.  
  
She stayed at the bar for hours, getting sloppy drunk to sleep heavy again tonight. Maybe Trevor wouldn't want her as a host if she fucked up her liver enough…  
She didn't pay her tab to head home until past midnight.   
As soon as she stepped out of the bar-  
"Help! Please!"  
Tommie spun in the direction of the alleyway beside the building.   
A woman ran out and grabbed her by the arm. "Please, you need to help me!" She cried. "My boyfriend just got stabbed, I need someone to keep him awake while I call 911!"  
Tommie was no hero- but she knew helping was the answer.   
She didn't even question it.  
She followed the frantic woman's pull into the alley. Deep. Until they were in the shadows.  
"Where is he?" Tommie looked around, distraught.  
Suddenly a blunt pain against her back.  
Tommie collapsed onto the concrete with a feeble gasp. She thought she blacked out for a second- but she immediately tried to get back to her feet.   
Feeling someone grab her legs and drag her back down.   
Survival instinct kicked in, and she freed her tactical knife from her pocket, quick-released the blade, and slashed at her assailants.  
Everything was happening so quickly- and she was drunk. She wasn't sure if she was seeing straight.  
There were three men and the woman who lured her into the attack.  
"Little bitch has a knife-" she heard one of them gasp as the blade was wrenched from her grip.  
And stabbed into her abdomen.  
The fight left her when searing pain replaced it.  
She felt like she couldn’t breathe. Body starting to go slack on the ground.  
Everything was getting harder to see with black spots in her vision quickly getting larger.  
  
She wasn’t certain, but she thought she heard screaming. The sound of ripping. Bones cracking. Blood splashing. Heavy thuds.  
And then suddenly- silence.


	8. Hurt

_"Jesus..."  
"- lost a lot of blood."  
_ _"Still has a pulse. Is she breathing?"_ _  
_ _“She’s breathing, the only damage I can see is-”_   
  
She thought she dreamed that.   
But the next time she could see anything, she could see an EMT sitting at her side, in what she could easily distinguish to be an ambulance.  
Then she blacked out again.  
  
The next time she came to, it was because she became aware of an annoying beep at her side.   
Cold, annoyed by the brightness of the lights overhead even with her eyes closed.   
Fingers flexing to try to re-gain warmth with blood flow.   
“Oh my god- Tommie?”   
Her mother’s voice at her side made her eyes open.   
She was in a hospital room.   
Her mother at her side, in tears as soon as she saw Tommie waking up. “Baby,” she cried, holding her daughter’s cold hand and rubbing it between hers to try to help warm her. She let go with one hand only to hit the nurse call button. “What happened? Do you need anything? How do you feel? Does it hurt?”   
Tommie was trying to process the moment, throat feeling too dry to speak.   
An IV drip in her arm, almost empty. No wonder she didn’t feel hungover.   
But the absence of headache only reminded her of her sore abdomen.   
_They stabbed me_ , she realized.   
_But where were they?_   
The door opened only a moment later, and an attractive young nurse entered.   
Tommie actually felt self-conscious being in nothing but a hospital gown-- and after how long? How long since her last shower? Since she put on makeup or washed her hair? She must’ve looked like a hot mess.   
“Good, she’s up,” the nurse brightly smiled as he entered. “How’s it goin’, Ms. Vercetti? How’re you feeling?”   
Tommie opened her mouth to speak. She felt like she was turning red. Fucking say something, stupid- “O-Okay…”   
“Good, glad to hear,” he nodded and checked her paperwork at the bottom of her bed. “‘Tommie’. That’s a nice name.”   
He was so hot she thought she was gonna die.   
He moved on to look at her IV drip. “Just about empty. I’m gonna get you some water and I’ll be back with the Doc, alright?”   
Tommie nodded slowly, lips pinched together in a hard line as he left.   
Lita looked at her daughter with a smirk. “I saw that.”   
“ _Shut up_ ,” Tommie groaned, voice raspy with sleep.   
“Glad to see you feel like yourself,” Lita brushed some of Tommie’s hair behind her shoulders.   
  
Minutes later, the doctor appeared in the room and removed her now empty IV bag- but the needle stayed in her arm.   
Lita was asked to leave- and two cops entered to talk to Tommie.   
They suspected she was targeted for human trafficking.   
She was drunk, she was alone, and her sympathy was taken advantage of.  
They asked her what happened, she said she was lured into the alley and jumped before one of the attackers stabbed her.   
They asked if she fought back.   
She said she tried but was overpowered.   
They asked if the knife belonged to her.   
She said it did.   
Why did she have a knife?   
Security.   
They reminded her that it was illegal to carry a weapon in public.   
“I was fucking attacked,” She retorted. “I’m in the fucking hospital for being _stabbed_ when I was _attacked_ . Would you have preferred I get murdered? Abducted? _Raped?_ ”   
“That’s not what we’re saying, ma’am-” One officer piped in, only to be interrupted.   
“Then what the fuck _are_ you saying?” She glowered. “Are any of _them_ saying I instigated this? Because that’s bullshit. I was at the bar just a minute earlier minding my own business, you could-”   
“You’re not under that kind of questioning,” the quieter officer near the door cut in. “This isn’t an interrogation. You don’t need to worry about being in trouble, we just wanted to know if _you_ know anything.”  
Tommie frowned. “I told you everything I know… Why exactly aren’t I under suspicion?”   
“Do you wanna be?” The first cop asked, brows raised.   
“No, just-- if I’m cleared, that means there’s proof I didn’t do something wrong, right? What happened?”   
Tommie noticed the way the two officers looked at each other. Uneasy. Like they weren’t sure how to describe what happened.   
“We uh--” The second cop cleared his throat. “The officer on the scene painted a nasty picture, but… _You_ were the only person there, out of five, who still had their jaw attached to their head.”   
Tommie thought she might vomit.   
“We weren’t really sure what to think, but a surveillance camera in the alley caught some of the scene,” The officer continued. “ _We_ -” he motioned to himself and his partner, “- watched the footage. And even though we couldn’t see much… It just looked like it happened on its own. We’ve never seen anything like it. There’s no explanation. We were hoping _you_ might’ve seen whatever it was that did it.”   
It was Trevor.   
Trevor ripped them apart for attacking her.   
“No,” she shook her head slowly. Lie easy to conceal given the gruesome details and how impossible it was for her to be found guilty. “I didn’t see anything.”   
  
“Alright, you’re gonna wanna keep it clean, don’t submerge it- so no baths or trips to the beach for a while, alright?” Her nurse, Shaun, told her as she got her shoes on. It hurt to bend, so Lita had brought her some sandals to just step into.   
It’d been a few days since the police had left. Tommie was to be released from the hospital today with care instructions for her stitches.   
“I doubt I’m gonna get back into a bikini anytime soon with an ugly wound on my stomach,” Tommie muttered under her breath and got off of her bed. It felt good to be mobile again. Even if it hurt like a bitch to walk. Her abdominal muscles were weakened- so she couldn’t expect to exercise anytime soon.   
“You’d still look better in a bikini than I would,” Shaun winked and Tommie had to turn her head to hide that she was blushing.   
“Somehow I doubt that,” Tommie managed a chuckle- it hurt to laugh.   
Shaun smiled. “Well, if you wanna come back in a couple weeks to get those stitches out, we can reassess.”   
Fuck he was cute… “I’ll keep that in mind.”


	9. Scars

Tommie peeled back the dressing over her scars with a pained wince.   
That was gonna leave an ugly scar. Still, she was alive.   
Worse for wear, but alive for the sole reason of a demon having claim over her.  
She wasn't sure if she should thank him for stepping in, given that four people had their jaws ripped off in the process.  
She couldn't think of anyone other than her mother who would've protected her so aggressively.  
  
"Trevor?" She asked aloud, in front of her bathroom mirror where she was carefully cleaning her wound with the washcloth.  
No answer from him. Not sure why she expected one.  
He'd been quiet the whole time she was in the hospital- too much surveillance for him to willingly communicate.  
Now that she was home she expected him to have a few days worth of energy to get out. Apparently that wasn't the case.  
She finished cleaning herself and replaced the protective dressing over the wound.  
The door creaked partially shut at her side.   
She flipped the lights off and his reflection was in the mirror with her again. Features impossible to distinguish. As always. A dark silhouette of a man. Or something only  _ shaped  _ like a man.  
" _There_ you are…" She quietly noted, somewhat relieved by his presence. That felt fucked up.   
She watched him touch her hair, and felt it brush back over her shoulder like her mom had done.   
Again, strangely, comforting. Like the first time.  
"Thank you for helping me..." The words came out less than certain.   
  
The only reason he intervened was because he needed a healthy, _living_ host. She knew that.  
Demons were creatures that were unable to love- as far as she knew. She only had horror movies for reference.   
And no way was she special enough to be the exception.   
  
He turned his head to her and began to lean closer.  
She flinched away and turned on the lights.   
Trevor was obviously still there with her, but at least with light helped her pretend she was alone.  
She shook the thought of what he might have done out of her head and took her shirt off of the counter to finish getting dressed for bed.  
She had long since stopped caring about Trevor seeing her naked. He'd lived there with her since day one and was always present- of course he'd see her naked once or twice. It didn't feel different from being 'watched' by someone's eyes on a poster.   
  
What _did_ bother her was the lack of orgasms.  
She and Logan hadn't done anything since before she even moved in.  
And alone time??  _ Forget it.  _ Voyeurism wasn't exactly her thing. Least of all if it was a literal demon watching her every move. And she didn't know how he would react to it.   
She pulled her blanket over herself when she got in bed. Trying to cocoon herself just as she got used to doing.   
Forced to be sober, thanks to the doctor's orders.   
Back where she started.   
  
She saw Trevor's shadow on her wall. Standing over her bed.  
  
_ 'Mine forever'.  
  
_ The words just kept coming to the front of her mind.  
She watched his shadow sink into the bed with her, and she felt weight on the mattress at her back.   
She said nothing. Did nothing.  And eventually she nodded off.  
  
The sound of the floor creaking beside her bed woke her up in the morning.  
Silence followed- and Tommie cautiously turned over to the empty side of the bed. Nothing beside her. Of course.   
She turned over again, hand sliding over the sheets to find where her phone ended up- only to find that it was nowhere within her reach. Stupid thing fell between the bed and the wall.  
Tommie groaned and slowly got out of bed. Carefully lowering herself to the floor, she reached under the bed where she spotted the phone lying on the floor.  
Just out of reach.  
"C'mon, motherfucker…" she muttered, teeth gritted against the pain in her abdomen. The stretch was pulling her stitches. Not a good feeling.   
  
Ow. Owowowowowow---- fuck this.  
  
Tommie moved herself back to her feet. She'd just retrieve the phone later.   
For now she needed to make sure she didn't fuck herself up.   
She started for the bedroom door and heard a scraping sound on the floor behind her. Trevor had retrieved her phone and put it where she could reach it.   
"Oh…" She muttered and quickly picked it up. "Thanks Trevor."  
Seemed he was out to help regularly.   
Would it be wrong to test how much?


	10. The Wall

Throughout the next two weeks, Tommie had been extra observant of Trevor's behavior.  
Moving her from the couch to her bed at night.   
Helping to move things closer to her reach.   
Keeping close by on the bed at night- but never touching her.   
She wondered if he was truly a demon after all, given how he put care into her. Not many descriptions matched him online- hell, even trying to find the right keywords to search proved to be difficult. Nothing really matched with an entity like him- aside from the 'guardian angel' trope.  
Nothing about Trevor was angelic. _That_ couldn't be correct.   
Not to mention that she wasn't religious or even _special_ enough to be looked after by something divine.  
He was something else. Maybe a-  
  
"Son of a _bitch_ ," Tommie winced when she felt her stitches being tugged.  
The nurse, Shaun, paused. "Doesn't it hurt?"  
"No, just-" Tommie felt color in her face. "The pulling surprised me. I never had stitches before."  
Shaun nodded and decided to carry a conversation to help distract her from the removal process. "So- sorry if this seems really forward but, I didn't wanna ask until you recovered. Do you maybe wanna go do something over the weekend?"  
"Sure." _Oh my God._ "Like what?"  
"Maybe…" He shrugged. "Check out that new casino on the edge of town. I hear there's parties in the penthouses like every week. There's also the nightclub in Vespucci. We-"  
"Stop pitching, I'm in," Tommie smiled, almost shyly. His smile made her heart skip a beat.   
The lights flickered overhead, and her smile dropped slightly.   
She knew then that Trevor didn't approve. But she couldn't let him intimidate her out of living her life.  
She and Shaun exchanged phone numbers after he had finished removing Tommie's stitches.   
For once she felt some optimism. Even if she had to tone it down for Trevor to behave.  
  
Trevor's helpful gestures were less frequent after that. Less quick. Like he was debating whether or not to keep doing them.  
Tommie wondered if he was sulking; but she didn't say anything about it to him. He couldn't decide things for her. She had to make that clear.  
  
"This date is happening," she muttered in the bathroom mirror as she drew on her eyeliner. "I need you to either stay home or take a back seat, alright? Don't fry his hand if he touches me, don't rip off the bottom half of his face. Just let me have a nice night with a nice guy…"  
No response from Trevor.  
She recapped the liner and quickly put on some mascara, fanning herself to get it to dry quicker.  
The lights flickered and she saw a brief glimpse of his shape in the mirror.  
She sighed. Irritated. "This is _happening_ , Trevor. It's my life and I'm in the driver's seat. You can get used to it."   
She turned the lights off, looking at him for half a second before stepping out of the bathroom.  
She heard a snap before she was fully through the doorway.  
She looked back inside to see a large crack in the mirror.  
She didn't address it- too angry that she would have to buy a new mirror; and too ready to leave to not let it go.  
She didn't want to be mad when Shaun picked her up.  
  
She ended up telling Shaun she was mad at her 'roommate' for breaking the mirror. He was understanding, and said he would help her forget about it quickly. She didn't forget all night.  
They went to the Diamond Casino. Tommie wasn't able to drink with the painkillers she had to take, but she had fun nonetheless.   
Spent $20, won back $45. Shaun got them something to eat, then they went upstairs to a rumored penthouse party.  
A great first date.  
  
"You wanna go get some breakfast in the morning?" He asked as they neared her apartment.  
"You mean-" Tommie checked her dying phone. "Now?"  
"Sure," he laughed. "Orrrr we can sleep it off and go for breakfast at 10."  
"I'm down," Tommie grinned. "I'll use tonight's winnings for breakfast. My treat."  
"If you insist, Rockefeller," Shaun pulled up in front of her building, parked behind her car. "You have a good time?"  
She wanted to invite him inside. She wanted that eight hours in between now and breakfast to be _very_ well spent.  
"Great time," she leaned over and kissed him.   
He reciprocated immediately, following her intensity and allowing her to set the pace.  
"You wanna stay the night?" She offered between kisses. "What's left of it?"  
"Believe me, I _wanna,_ " he replied. "But you still need to finish healing. Then after _that_ I'll stay as long as you want."  
… Shit, he was right.  
The damaged abdominal muscles wouldn't exactly make sex easy. Her doctor mentioned a six week period in between surgery and 'strenuous activity'.  
She was two weeks in. What's four more weeks of waiting?  
  
Still, something felt off. She couldn't forget the stupid broken mirror.  
She kept thinking all night of the caring gestures. The intangible presence beside her while she slept every night. The gentle touch of her hair or her face- like she was something fragile and precious.  
  
"Okay," she shook off the thoughts. "Yeah, I'll heal up and we'll go from there."  
Involving someone else would make everything so much more stressful.  
Unless she told Shaun about Trevor. Maybe he could protect himself with knowledge.  
Not likely, but she could imagine it at the very least. Tommie considered this as she entered her apartment- and found a mess.  
The fridge was open and food was strewn out on the floor. The couch was shoved across the room. Coffee table overturned. Lights left on in every room. Her plant once again lying on the floor with its soil spread all around.  
Writing on every surface of the hallway. Walls. Floor. Ceiling.  
All of it incomprehensible scribbling except for the edges.   
All of it being: _'ROSA'_ and _'MINE'_ .  
"Goddamn it…" She uttered, slowly moving through the apartment to assess the damage.   
Her sheets were pulled off her bed and clothing was thrown from the closet onto the floor.   
In the bathroom, her makeup was lying all over the linoleum, and the crack in the mirror had expanded.   
“That’s _real_ fucking mature, Trevor,” Tommie addressed the empty apartment. “Congratulations, you threw a temper tantrum like a fucking _child!_ You’ve proven your point- you don’t like when I’m happy. Well, FUCK _. YOU!_ ” She closed the fridge before she moved between the rooms, picking things up off the floor or at least moving them to have a walking path. She’d clean later. Her pain medication was starting to wear off and her abdomen was sore. “You can only intimidate me into doing what you want for so long- _I’m not letting you do it anymore!_ ”   
She paused when she felt the heaviness of the air in the hallway. He was there with her.   
“I don’t care if you don’t like it, I don’t even care if you set this fucking apartment on _fire_ , you’re not stopping me from going out with Shaun or _anyone else_ from now on! You’re not stopping me from doing _anything!_ ”   
As soon as the last syllable was in the air, she was pushed until her back was against the wall. Pinned, unable to move. A rush of hot air near her face- like he was breathing against the side of her head.   
Tommie tried to keep her breathing even, trying not to show that she was afraid. Her heart pounding hard enough that she was sure it could be heard from a foot away. She felt like she was holding her breath.   
“Okay Trevor…” She slowly, quietly said. Eyes welling up with miserable resignation, daring to turn her head toward where his might’ve been. The closest thing she had to looking him in the face. “You win. I won’t go out with anyone again.”   
There was a long pause, then she was suddenly released.   
Without thinking, she darted for the bedroom and shut herself inside. Door locked, lights on in the entire apartment. She sat on her bed and stared at the door for hours to make sure she was safely alone.


	11. Flowers

Tommie jumped awake- having inadvertently snored loudly enough to wake herself.  
When did she fall asleep? She didn’t think she’d be able to after last night.  
She was still sitting on her bed, leaned against the corner where the walls met.  
Lights still on overhead but muted by the daylight coming in through her bedroom window. The soft sounds of traffic, conversation, and music outside told her that Los Santos had been awake for a little while now.  
Her middle hurt when she moved to leave her bed- she was overdue for her pain medication. What time was it?  
Where was her phone?  
  
Not under the bed, not where she was sitting-- it must’ve fallen out of her pocket.  
When Trevor pinned her to the wall…  
Remembering the night before instantly filled her with anxiety. What was she gonna do now? Was he gonna kill her?  
  
Tommie slowly cracked the bedroom door open- not able to see her phone in the graffitied hallway.  
She ventured out until she could see the entirety of the apartment. The couch had been moved back and the coffee table was rightside up. The food on the floor had been neatly piled up in front of the fridge.  
Windows wide open, decomposed flowers lying all over the floor.  
Where did the flowers come from?  
She moved to the windows, peering out and seeing the lady who owned the salon downstairs was talking to the police.

Tommie reflexively moved away from the windows- wondering if the police now knew that she was responsible for the deaths of those four people.  
Thank god Mrs. Jones was a loud talker; because she could hear everything now that she was listening.  
“- the flowers. Nothing’s missing, but it’s a mess. The only thing that got stolen was some flowers out of a vase-”  
Oh fuck, she had to clean this up discreetly. “Trevor…?” She cautiously asked. “Are you here?”  
The dry-erase marker fell off of the board and rolled across the floor.  
She turned to the board and saw a message.  
  
 _‘WONT HURT’_ _  
_  
He didn’t want to hurt her.  
Things being put back into place, the flowers, leaving her alone until she called for him---  
Was this an apology? Do demons feel regret? _Can_ demons feel regret?  
Of course she was still horrified by the display of power, but… “I forgive you, Trevor.”  
Not like she had a choice. What else could she say?  
"I just… I thought you and me were friends by now…"  
She trailed into silence with a thought: what if that was the problem?  
Trevor didn't act out in front of her friends and family. Only when she was threatened, or… Or with someone she wanted to be _more_ with.  
  
Trevor wasn't isolating her, he was _jealous_.  
Because-- he wanted her attention for himself?  
  
Tommie found her phone on the kitchen counter, on top of more dead flowers.  
Why flowers for an apology?  
She hadn’t even considered the nature of Trevor’s obsession with her beyond needing a host body-- Didn’t demons usually _destroy_ the host body?  
What the fuck was he doing with her by helping her?  
Tommie picked up one of the wilted carnations and the petals fell off.  
The fucking flowers everywhere. The declarations of ‘MINE FOREVER’ and insistence that he wouldn’t hurt her. Se recalled the times he’d gently touched her face or her hair and now, in a new context, saw them as adoration.  
Did he _love_ her?


	12. Static

Trevor couldn't love her. What a ridiculous thought that a demon, the literal embodiment of evil and hatred, could or would feel anything even _similar_ to love for a human. Least of all someone as unremarkable as her.  
Hell, she couldn't even keep _Logan_ interested enough, and he wasn't anything special either.  
  
After Tommie canceled on Shaun, Trevor resumed the strange, docile behavior for the following weeks. He took care of her while she healed. She thanked him frequently and eventually started to appreciate the gestures in the newly perceived context. He seemed happy, or as happy as a faceless, voiceless being like him could be. She did a lot of research on if demons could feel love for humans, but it was inconclusive. Most of the results were horny fanfiction or stupid, hornier anime. Maybe she'd never know.  
She thought she should address it with him. Or would it be bad to? What if it was a trick?  
What happens if it is?  
What happens if it _isn't?  
  
_ Tommie rubbed her eyes. Tired, and sick of searching online. Her eyes were strained from staring at the computer screen for hours. On page 23 of results. Nothing that was helpful or even seemingly legitimate.  
No knowledge of what he was, why he chose her, or why he cared for her. Tommie wondered if there simply were no answers.   
There were message boards upon message boards of people claiming to be haunted or possessed; and they all sounded less like bullshit every time she looked at them.  
Were there more like Trevor? Maybe she'd make a post…  
  
She had to fold her laptop shut before she got sucked back down the rabbit hole. She would have to come back to that website.  
Tommie moved her laptop from her lap to the coffee table and stretched herself out along the couch. She’d had the TV on for a while, and it was getting late. She would be returning to work soon, now that her injury was healed. Her abdominal wall was still weak, so she couldn’t be expected to do heavy lifting. But she could at least fold clothes, hang them up, or work at the register. Her medical bill would come soon. She’d need to take up a second job…  
“I don’t suppose _you_ could bring some money into the house,” Tommie muttered to Trevor as she snuggled into a throw pillow. “Y’know, _without_ killing anyone. Or terrorizing the ladies downstairs in the salon again.”  
She felt an invisible hand run through her hair. He seemed to like doing that. Just to let her know he was there or to acknowledge her words.  
“We should probably call it a night,” she yawned, reaching over for the remote and turning the TV off. She left her comfortable spot on the couch to go to her room and start getting ready for bed.  
  
After putting her toothbrush back into the medicine cabinet, Tommie stared at her cracked reflection and sighed before she turned off the lights. As always, the tall shadow was right beside her in the mirror.  
After that night, he’d been so careful with her again. Moreso, even.  
Moving her from the couch to her bed every time she fell asleep watching TV. Making sure her lights were off. Leaving her glasses of water beside her bed.  
Seeming to try to kiss her in the dimly lit bathroom mirror.  
What if she let him?  
  
She kept her hand close to the switch, as she always did, while she watched his shadow.  
“Why'd you pick _me_ , Trevor?” She asked quietly.  
No answer; but his head turned to her. She got the sense that he was admiring her- was she chosen for how she looked?  
Ah, so men really weren't all that different from demons.  
She chuckled at the thought.  
He leaned toward her again, and she tensed, smile dropping.  
What if it wasn’t an attempted kiss? What if he was going to hurt her after all?  
... What did she have to lose by finding out?  
She turned her head to him- finding nothing. She wasn’t sure why she expected to see him every time she looked over. She could never look directly at him outside of sleep paralysis.  
She looked back to the mirror, he was so close to the side of her head now. No longer leaning in. She saw him reach for her arm, and she slowly lowered it away from the light switch.  
She felt a touch against her cheek. The cracked reflection showed Trevor kissing her.  
Tommie turned her head to the nothing beside her, the touch disappeared for a moment, then resumed against her lips.  
Heart pounding in her eardrums and all the way down to her fingertips, Tommie could feel herself trembling as she instinctively returned the kiss.  
Eyes closed, not like she could see him anyway.  
A disembodied hand on the side of her face made her jump, and she flipped the lights back on.  
Now alone in the bathroom, like every time.  
“Wh…” She wasn’t sure what she was going to ask him. She wasn't even sure if it was okay to like this. “I’m gonna get some sleep. Sorry.”  
  
Tommie woke up a few hours later when a police siren passed her open window.  
Last thing she remembered was being wrapped up in her blanket and waiting to feel Trevor get in her bed as well. But he didn't- a break from the usual.  
Should she not have kissed him?   
She turned onto her other side so she wasn't facing the wall anymore and tried to fall back asleep.  
  
She felt herself being pulled down the sheets again.  
“What?” She thought she muttered the question aloud but couldn’t be sure.  
She saw Trevor beside her bed, kneeling so he was face-to-face at her level. Close to her…  
The moment was so long it was nerve wracking. She chalked it up to nerves making everything seem to have a black haze. Or maybe this was sleep paralysis. She could never look directly at him when she was awake.  
Tommie found herself able to move, not really thinking, closing the gap between them to try to kiss him again.   
They'd never touched during sleep paralysis before. He felt like static electricity against her lips now. But also warm to the touch-- almost hot. Like being in a shower where the water temperature was high enough to redden your skin.   
She found herself being moved and her blanket being pulled away. Lying on her back now, feeling the heat envelop her entirely. Trevor's weight on top of her.   
Her movements felt sluggish and tired, but he was moving normally. The sensation of the kiss leaving her lips and moving down to her throat.   
Tommie's heart was racing again with the unpredictability of what he might do. Of what she might _let_ him do.  
Her breath hitched when she felt an invisible tongue against the artery on the side of her neck. Even further, down to her chest.  
She thought she could feel his mouth against her flesh even with her shirt on. The sense of sparks and heat when he took one of her nipples into his mouth was unlike anything she ever felt before.  
She let out a strained, pleasured noise, already feeling hot to the point of starting to sweat.  
Just having clothes on was unbearable now. But in her state of semi-sleep-paralysis, she couldn't coordinate herself well enough to take them off.  
Trevor didn't seem to care, able to touch her through them anyway. Currently fixated on her breasts. She felt them be squeezed and she breathed a needy moan, trying to feel any solid part of him between her legs. Nothing. Only more of the hot sparks as a move of her hips passed through his shadow.   
So she couldn't touch him, but he could touch her.  
Fuck, that wasn't fair.  
Suddenly she felt him inside her.  
"Oh _fuck_ -" she sharply gasped. It instantly felt like she was almost at the edge. Even without the physical act of having sex with another body, Tommie was overwhelmed with the immediate height of pleasure. So hot and deep inside. She thought she might start to cry from overstimulation. Her body was completely stiff, trying to just process the feeling so she could relax her muscles.  
She noticed the slick feeling between her thighs. She'd never been so wet before.   
She couldn't control her breathing or any noise that slipped out with it. She felt light-headed and worried she might pass out-- especially when the blissful feeling inside started happening _faster.  
_ Tommie forgot to breathe when her orgasm hit her like a gunshot. Eyes wide, heart pounding, entire body clenched, the feeling of hot liquid seeping through her shorts.   
She was aware of Trevor kissing her again, not stopping, not slowing. Fucking her harder, even. Her orgasm simply wouldn't stop. It stayed peaked- and she finally drew a breath and exhaled in a scream as the plateaued ecstasy somehow became _higher_.   
It was so much all at once. She thought she might die.  
"Trevor… I _can't_ … _!_ " She weakly pleaded, certain she'd lose her sanity if this kept on.  
The feeling inside went away in the blink of an eye, and Tommie's body went limp against the mattress when her muscles finally relaxed.   
She opened her eyes, awake, and still riding out the aftershocks. She worked to catch her breath, trying to establish a slow, even rhythm to get her heart rate back to normal.  
… Oh God, she came so hard. And she was lying in the huge wet spot that resulted.


	13. Blinded

It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to maintain a sexual relationship with a demon.   
Yet here she was. Having to hold onto the bathroom sink to keep herself steady. Practically in tears from every little bit of motion- again.   
Tommie’s knees were weak and she felt lightheaded, but she didn’t want it to end. So close to finishing again. She lost count.   
“One-- one more,” she panted, watching his shadow in the dark, cracked mirror. Watching him touch her through her clothes. Feeling him inside her even without a physical body. “Just one more. Then I gotta get ready for work.”   
He may as well have not heard her.   
Tommie threw her head back, eyes up at the ceiling as the pleasure mounted. Bit by bit, the end so quickly approaching yet feeling miles away. Then in an instant-   
“ _Ohmygod_ ,” the words came out in a weak sob, and she saw stars when her orgasm hit hard enough to make tears spring to her eyes. Her knees buckled, and she almost collapsed- but Trevor caught her, pushing her body back against the sink for support.   
The sensation of sex came to a halt, and when Tommie finally came back down to Earth, she saw Trevor’s reflection holding her. Hunched over with his head on her shoulder to watch her in the mirror.   
She exhaled, feeling like she could finally breathe.  
  
He’d gotten better at stopping before she passed out. It took a few times- and at one point she actually _did_ black out for a minute or two in the middle of the act. He'd learned her limit since then.   
“Okay… I gotta hurry.” She felt like she was drunk, head swimming as she steadied herself and turned the light on. She headed for the shower. Nobody had ever gotten her off like this- keeping her coming back for more. It was like mainlining _heroin._ _  
_ _  
_ “You’ve been weirdly upbeat for somebody who got dumped and stabbed this year,” Tracey noted, adjusting her sunglasses. “Whatever you’re smoking, I want some.”   
“I haven’t smoked in a while,” Tommie smiled and turned over in the reclined lawn chair. She came over after getting off work and they spent time at the pool. Now just enjoying what was left of the daylight. She adjusted the bottom of her tank top. She told Tracey she wore it to hide the scar from her stab wound- but that was only half true. The heat from Trevor's touch had left red, flushed marks on her skin and she was waiting for them to fade. They'd had sex again when she came home from work. “Just trying to stay positive, I guess.”   
“Lots of sex, huh?”   
“ _Tons_ ,” Tommie confirmed. “More than I know what to do with. I'm tired all the time now- dude's practically draining the life out of me.”  
Something about that felt unpleasantly true.   
  
When she got home she loaded the message board she'd saved. She had taken cursory glances at it every so often- in between work, chores, self-care, and Trevor initiating sex.  
Today there was an AMA thread for a demonologist.   
Why didn't she do this earlier?  
  
Tommie spent the following minutes typing out several paragraphs of her experiences with Trevor.  
The sudden appearance into her life, the obsessiveness, the possessive nature, how he seemed to be docile most of the time, and the sex- without getting into _too_ graphic of detail.   
She checked for a response every hour for the next day. Zero post replies or mentions-- but, finally, a direct message.   
  
_‘It sounds like you have an incubus latching onto you. If you’re anywhere near Los Santos, I can set you up with a fellow demonologist who can help you get rid of it. As long as you’re still breathing, it’s not too late.’_ _  
_   
Tommie frowned at that, then opened up a search online to look up what an incubus was.   
Sure, she’d heard of the band, but…   
  
_An incubus is a demon in male form who, according to mythological and legendary traditions, lies upon sleeping women in order to engage in sexual activity with them._ _An Incubus spends most of his time seducing human females and feeding on the sexual ecstasy caused. Notoriously lazy, an Incubus will spend most of the rest of his time lounging somewhere comfortable until they feel the desire for another tryst with some helpless female (for pleasure or sustenance)._ _Some traditions hold that repeated sexual activity with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, mental state, or even death.  
  
_ _Death._   
She felt ice in her veins and folded her laptop shut- unable to look at the screen for another second. Hand over her mouth, taking deep breaths through her nose and squeezing her eyes shut in hopes of steadying herself.   
She was so tired lately. Ever since that first stupid kiss she thought wouldn’t hurt.   
He didn’t love her. He didn’t even care about her. She was an investment that was finally paying off: a consistent food source.   
  
Why did she let herself think she mattered?   
  
Trevor had protected her. Killed for her. Taken care of her. Fought to have her attention. Laid beside her in bed every night.  
He told her he’d never hurt her, that he’d be with her forever-- but what he meant was he’d be with her for the rest of _her_ life. Killing her slowly in a way she wouldn’t see as painful.   
Trevor was a _demon_ , through and through. She knew this from the start but was blinded by the insinuation that he valued her. That he might’ve actually _loved_ her.   
Even worse-- she had started to feel comfortable with the thought. Maybe she even wanted it to be that way.   
Maybe she could’ve felt it too.


	14. Alone

It took Tommie some time to work up the nerve to reply to the demonologist. Three days.  
Every time she tried, she backed down.   
What were the consequences to this? Would Trevor kill this person if she went to them?   
Her fingers drummed on the keys as she thought up what to reply with.   
  
_‘I want it gone.’_   
  
She sent the message and closed the device, jittery with nerves.   
She went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine- which she drank quickly and pulled a face at the bitter taste.   
She noticed the white board on the wall.   
“Trevor,” she started, pouring herself more wine. “What kind of demon are you?”   
Maybe she could give him a chance to tell the truth. Maybe if there was communication she could find a way to _not_ die.   
But he didn’t write anything on the board.   
“Why won’t you tell me?” She asked. “Why can’t I know anything about you?”   
Still no answer.   
“I need you to say _something_ ,” she insisted. “I need a _reason_ to keep this up with you.”   
Still nothing.   
“I guess I’ll just go fuck myself.” Tommie sighed and turned away.   
A marker dropped to the floor behind her, and she turned to see that the board now had a reply.   
  
_MY ROSA_ _  
_ _  
_ Tommie pulled a face, blinking hard to keep brimming tears from overflowing.   
_It's just more manipulation. That's all he can do_.   
She felt ridiculous for even giving him the chance to lie like that.   
Why was she doing this to herself? "What do you want from me? For real."  
  
She watched the board swipe clean. Then her heart caught in her throat as she watched the word ' _MINE_ ' be written out in big letters that filled out the entire board.   
Another invisible kiss against her lips.  
She felt sick with anxiety.  
  
The demonologist put her in contact with a colleague in Los Santos.  
Spencer Zales.

Tommie did extensive research on the name and location of the office before she decided to contact him. He insisted on speaking through text or email so Trevor wouldn’t be able to listen to the conversation; but he said he would be able to help her.  
He didn’t have a website or any kind of reviews-- but it’s not like he was a business.   
The address was the most important part. He was near the ULSA campus- an area she knew fairly well.   
When she pulled up to the building, she saw that it was an apartment complex- not an office.   
_This fucking guy works out of his house,_ Tommie thought, already skeptical.   
She put her car in park but kept the engine running- she had no idea if this guy was actually legit or if he would just stab her too.   
“Stay here, Trev,” she muttered toward the passenger seat as she got out. “I’ll call for you if I need you. Watch the car.”   
  
She wasn’t sure if he listened, but whether or not he killed the demonologist when he found out her intent.  
Tommie rang the doorbell of the demonologist’s unit and it was quickly answered.  
Zales looked like a regular guy- mostly. Kinda like one of those guys you’d expect to still live in their parents’ basement who harasses people on the internet because they were painfully single.  
“You must be Rosa,” he greeted, stepping aside for her. “Please, come in. Is it with you now?”  
“I told him to watch the car,” Tommie told him and came in. She’d used her fake name ‘Rosa Salamanca’. Last thing she needed was Zales to look into her personal information.   
She didn’t turn her back to him at any point.   
“It really listens to you?” Zales asked, intrigued. “That’s really interesting. I saw your post in my colleague’s thread. I just didn’t believe any of the seemingly caring things happened.” He closed his front door and led the way through his messy apartment.   
“Well, it all happens,” Tommie told him. He had a lot of demonic paintings and statues in his apartment. Some old, some printed from a computer, some looked _recent_ and were labeled with names and dates. Like they were from possession cases. An exorcist’s toolkit, a blue glass bottle labeled ‘HOLY WATER’ was situated conspicuously on a shelf.   
“You must be a high priority target for it,” Zales noted and they stepped into a small, cramped office space. His desk was the only clear part of the room- where his computer was set up. Everywhere else was stacks of books, loose papers, figurines of demons and other monsters, more canvas paintings leaned against the walls in stacks.   
“Yeah, well-” Tommie sighed. She didn’t mention Trevor ripping four people apart to keep her alive. “That’s _one_ way of putting it.”   
“And you’ve been having sexual intercourse with it?”   
“For lack of a better term,” Tommie nodded. Trevor had tried to initiate several times a day for the last few days; but she told him she wasn’t in the mood every time. He didn’t try to coerce her.   
He sat down at his computer and immediately began taking notes. “And how often, would you say?”   
Tommie felt her face go hot. This was invasive, to say the least. “Like… A few times a day… For the last two weeks. Last few days excluded. Ever since I figured out what he was doing. Trevor’s been-”   
“Wait wait-” Zales paused. “Who’s Trevor?”   
“The incubus- that’s the name I gave him.”   
“You gave it a name?” He frowned. “Christ, it’s like you _want_ to keep it.”   
Tommie recalled the priest telling her she’d been wrong to name Trevor- as well as to assign a sex to him. “Well, he didn’t seem eager to leave anyway,” she defended. “Can you still help? The church turned me away.”   
“Not surprising,” Zales sniffed. “Exorcisms aren’t popular these days. The church doesn’t want fingers pointed in their direction if the host dies mid-ritual. Sometimes that happens. It’s easier to turn people away and let them die or be locked away in mental institutions. But I think I can help you. I need you to sign a waiver-”

“I’m not signing shit,” Tommie interjected. “You get the demon out of me and I’ll pay you, but I’m not signing anything until the job is done and I’m still alive.”  
“Then I guess I can’t help you,” Zales retorted.   
“What if I do it myself?”   
He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You’d probably die, depending on how bad ‘Trevor’ wants to _hurt_ you for kicking him out.”

“What would I need?” She asked. “Do I need a ritual, a chant, a cross, or-”  
“Holy water. Salt lines. Maybe cleanse with sage,” he suggested. “There’s been success with simple things like that and you could try to find a solution at a little witchcraft shop somewhere in town. But what would I know? I’m just the guy who _studies_ demons.”   
Tommie sneered.  
 _Holy water.  
_ “Fine,” she glowered and turned on her heel to leave. “I’ll see myself out.”   
“Good luck!” He flippantly called after her, receiving a middle finger in response before she was out of sight.   
Tommie swiped the unguarded bottle of holy water off of the shelf and shoved it into her pocket as she left the apartment- then quite literally ran to her car to get out of there before Zales could sense anything was amiss. Thank fuck she left it running.   
  
Tommie paced her living room, holding the glass bottle tightly in her palm. It was small- about six ounces of holy water. Was it enough? What was she even supposed to do with it?   
Burning sage and pouring salt on the floor sounded too easy. If this failed, she might try those. But this was her best shot… Whatever she was supposed to do with it.   
Tommie could hear her heart pounding in her eardrums.   
She just about jumped out of her skin when a dry erase marker dropped from the board. How Trevor frequently requested her attention.   
  
_ROSA_ _  
_ _  
_ “ _What is it, Trevor?_ ” She asked impatiently. “If you’re asking for sex, I don’t want to right now.”   
The same soft, affectionate sensation of a kiss on her lips. She hated herself for wanting to enjoy it.   
She pulled away, resuming her pacing. “I don’t feel good today,” a poor excuse. But what else could she say?   
She looked at the board.   
“Trevor…” She might find compromise if he let her have some kind of power in the relationship. The priest told her that one could have power over a demon with-- “What’s your _real_ name?”   
Trevor didn’t make a move to clear the board.   
  
That was the last chance she could really give him.   
Tommie felt like when she found out Logan had someone else-- only worse.   
_Why was this so much worse?_   
“I can’t keep going like this,” she told him, pulling the bottle from her hoodie and unscrewing the plastic cap. “I'm sorry.”   
Without any other idea of what to do, Tommie raised the blue bottle to her lips and drank.   
Nothing felt different. What a waste.   
Tommie shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut to hide that they were welling up with frustration.   
  
Suddenly a burning pain.   
  
Tommie’s legs gave out from underneath her and she dropped onto her knees, curled into the fetal position on the floor with the horrible, mounting pain in her abdomen.   
She struggled to take a breath, only able to draw in a thin wheeze and exhale a guttural, anguished scream.   
The pain started to move upward, through her chest, into her throat-   
And finally, she lurched forward onto her hands and knees and vomited.   
Black, ferrofluid-like liquid that had no taste or smell. But it burned her throat on the way out, and the torturous heaving was accompanied by a sense of static electricity.   
The liquid pooled under her rapidly, an impossible amount that just kept spreading along the floor until it began to climb up the walls.   
And then, abruptly, it stopped coming.   
Tommie gasped for breath, shrinking in on herself until she was in the fetal position, arms up around her head to try to protect herself from whatever may happen.   
The black liquid sizzled away; and was completely evaporated within seconds of starting.   
  
It took her a few seconds of trying to calm herself, wheezing with the still fading pain, surrounded by nothing but silence.   
"T-Trevor?" She called.  
No signs of him anywhere. No new writing on the board. No touch to her hair. Nothing.  
  
She was alone.


	15. Need

Living alone was an adjustment.  
Over the following two months, Tommie was constantly looking over her shoulder. Looking at the white board. Flipping the lights in the bathroom on and off. Searching for activity on her cameras. Sleeping undisturbed…  
Or at least trying to.  
Without the sense of security that came with being protected, Tommie had occasional panic attacks when she remembered that she was now vulnerable. If someone chose to attack her again, she wouldn’t walk away from it.  
The panic attacks were followed by long, teaful spells of depression. Remembering that she was now completely isolated, and that it was something _she_ had wanted.  
She had to constantly remind herself that she would’ve died if she didn’t put a stop to it. But the fact was that she didn’t _know_ that for certain.   
She’d acted without thinking it out.  
She could’ve tried harder to get some facts out of him.  
She _should’ve_.  
  
All that remained of him now was a black stain on the floor; where the liquid first hit when she expelled him.  
  
“Are you okay?”  
“I’m fine, why?”  
“Just- you seem like you’ve been slowing down lately,” her mom told her. “Did something happen?”  
Tommie pinched her lips in a hard line for a moment. “No, not really.”  
“I saw that.”  
“Okay, I was kinda talking to somebody. And we had an argument and now we’re not talking.”  
Lita frowned. “What was the argument?”  
“The ‘what are we’ argument,” Tommie sighed and sunk in her chair. They’d gone out to lunch. “He wanted to be more. And I kinda did too, buuuut... I fucked it up. By not being sure. And I got scared and I broke things off without thinking it out.”  
“Baby…” Lita shook her head, smiling wide. “I’m so happy to see you like this!”  
Tommie blinked. “ _Why?”_  
“You never cared that much about someone else!” Lita explained. “You had boyfriends I thought were little piles of sentient _shit_ and you walked off the breakups really quick. You had one or two I thought were great for you and when those ended you brushed it off like it was nothing and just moved on the same way. And you never even looked back on any of them! Whoever this one is, he’s gotta be the real deal if you’re so torn up about being without him.”  
Tommie opened her mouth to deny all of that-- but Lita had a point. Even Logan, who Tommie thought she might’ve had a future with, was out of her mind as quickly as she could blink.  
But having Trevor gone was like having part of her surgically removed.  
And all she could think about was how something important was missing.  
And yet denial was still her go-to. “I still think it’s fucked up that you’re happy about this.”  
  
Late in the evening, Tommie sat in the center of her living room couch staring at the quarter in her palm and occasionally rolling it between her fingers.  
This was going to come down to flipping a coin.  
Heads: she’d most likely kill herself trying to find and perform a summoning ritual to bring Trevor back; hope he would forgive her for getting rid of him while continuing to live in symbiosis. And not care if she might die.  
And tails: move on, face life alone, and try to pretend she never experienced proof of the supernatural.  
It had been two months since he’d gone.  
The loneliest two months of her life.  
This would have to decide.  
Tommie set the coin on top of her thumb, prepared to flip it.  
She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath before she flicked the coin into the air.  
She opened her eyes to catch it, and kept it squeezed tightly in her palm.  
This is the decision. This is final. Whatever it is…  
  
Tommie’s jaw clenched as she opened her palm to see that the coin had landed with the tails side up.  
  
“Tails,” she murmured, as if having to remind herself that her eyes weren’t lying. “Move on.”  
The universe had decided that she should move on.  
But she couldn’t accept that.  
She turned the coin over in her hand. “Heads. Bring him back.”  
  
With Spencer Zales and the online forums no longer being an option, Tommie had to turn to the rest of the internet the following morning.  
There was an occult shop that recently opened in town where a video store used to be. It was as good of a place as any to start.  
Tommie had called in sick to work so she could have the day to try to get everything together. She knew nothing of the occult. This was going to take a lot of work.  
The store was lined with bookshelves. Some containing jars of herbs, some with crystals, and others with books. Tommie didn’t know where to start searching.  
"Need help finding anything?" A voice at her side made her jump.  
A woman with tentacle shaped gauges in her ears bad approached her. Close to her age. If she had to guess.   
"Uh…" Tommie wasn't sure what to ask for specifically. "Do you have anything about incubi?"  
"Oooh, incubus, huh?" The woman smirked knowingly. "Those are fun to read about."  
"I wanna find a summoning ritual," Tommie added. "If there's anything like that here."  
"Yeah there's some stuff about summoning," she replied and motioned for Tommie to follow her to another shelf. "But you should be careful with incubi. They're not something to underestimate."  
"I know," Tommie told her. "I-- I have some experience."  
The woman paused and turned to her. "Wait… You're Rosa! Right?"  
Tommie's brows furrowed. How'd she know that?  
"I saw Zales's post about you in the forums. He said you came to him, declined his offer, and stole a bottle of holy water out of his apartment. Did you really have a relationship with your incubus?"   
Tommie didn't like being known online. "Can you just show me the book, please?"  
The woman turned back to the shelf and grabbed a nearby stepping stool to reach a high shelf. "You must've gotten rid of it yourself if you're here trying to get it back. What made you change your mind?"  
Tommie didn't want to spill her guts to a stranger, but… "I guess there's something more to it than I thought."  
  
The shop employee, Desiree, had found a book for her that was reserved only for the people who were serious about summoning rituals. She'd also recommended ritual tools and the possibility of a sacrificial offering.   
"Vinewood insists that you need to sacrifice a person, a goat, or a chicken but you can get by with plenty of other things," Desiree noted as she rang up the purchase. "I've heard of people using more personal things so that specific demons know who's calling them."  
"What's more personal?" Tommie asked.  
"Well- I heard this one guy was able to summon a demon with some of his _teeth._ "


	16. Ritual

A personal sacrifice.  
The book stated that the location where the demon was last exorcized was ideal for summoning, given the barrier between worlds was already weakened there.   
Tommie drew the geometric summoning circle out of the book on her floor with chalk paint. Strange symbols from a language she didn't recognize adorned the outside edges. She would lay her designated sacrifice in the center. Still undecided.   
  
And what if she summoned the wrong thing?   
  
This was to summon  _ an _ incubus, not  _ the _ incubus. There were more than just Trevor.    
She’d have to hope that this ritual was specific enough. She had his last location.   
The final details were to light candles around the edges of the circle-- cliche, but sure.   
Unfortunately, all she had were little tea lights. They’d just have to be good enough.   
Tommie started to light the candles in the circle, keeping herself out of the circle. Last thing she wanted was to accidentally mark  _ herself _ as a sacrifice… Unless that would work?   
  
When all candles were lit, Tommie turned off the lights and sat beside the circle. This was stupid. She was going to kill herself.   
What fucking sacrifice would tie her to Trevor?   
She remembered every time he’d ran his hand through her hair. A gesture she came to value so much.   
Scissors on the kitchen counter.   
Would hair be personal enough?   
Fuck it.   
She quickly grabbed the scissors and pulled her ponytail over her shoulder.    
Dread when the blades were around her hair. A moment’s hesitation…   
Then she sawed through her hair with the blades, already wondering how she would explain the drastic, choppy haircut to the lady at the salon where she’d get it evened out.   
After the final snip, she set what looked like fourteen inches of hair into the center of the circle.    
“Please be enough,” she thought aloud.   
  
_ You’ll probably die if you do this, _ a part of her conscience suddenly spoke up as she turned the page to the incantation.    
Tommie was already in this deep. “I don’t fucking care.”   
Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. But at least one way she might have her guardian demon back. Maybe now with different conditions.   
  
She could barely read the incantation, let alone speak it out loud. But she did her best to complete it, slowing toward the end out of worry of what may happen.   
But when she spoke the final word, nothing happened.   
Did she read it right?   
She did, right?   
Not like she would know. She spoke two languages, and whatever this writing was wasn’t one of them.   
“Bullshit,” she muttered.   
She’d gotten her hopes up for this. A fucking book and some dollar store candles on a stupid chalk circle.   
“Fucking-” She threw the book across the room and it collided against the wall before dropping to the floor. “- _ BULLSHIT!” _ __   
Tommie didn’t realize she was crying until she felt a tear roll down her face. She wiped the back of her sleeve across her cheek and blew out each of the small candles.   
She’d clean this up in the morning.


	17. Open

The circle had remained undisturbed when Tommie woke up the next morning.   
Cleaning it up took minutes- and she felt deep regret for cutting off her hair. She refused to look into a mirror just yet; but given the lightweight feeling when she moved her head, it must’ve been a lot of hair gone.   
Ugh, what the fuck did she do to herself?    
The chick at the shop made this book seem so legit. She picked it out  _ personally _ for Tommie; so what the fuck!?   
  
Tommie wore her hood up to cover her hair when she went back to the store as soon as it opened.   
“Hey!” The lady with the tentacle gauges, Desiree, greeted when she saw Tommie enter. Her smile dropped when she saw the look on her face.   
“Did Zales tell you to fuck with me!?” Tommie slammed the book onto the counter. “Because I took his stupid fucking holy water!?”   
“Jesus-” Desiree groaned. “No, he just told people not to talk to you! That guy’s always been a melodramatic dick, so I wrote it off! What’s the problem!?”   
“I did the ritual!” Tommie continued. “And it was  _ bullshit! _ Nothing happened when I finished the chant so I fucked off and went to bed! I cut my hair off for this-”   
“Wait-” Desiree looked panicked. “You just went to bed?   
Tommie cocked her head. “Did I fucking stutter?”   
“You were supposed to close the ritual!”    
“What’s ‘closing the ritual’?”   
“Closing is what you do so only the demon you  _ want  _ comes through to our world,” Desiree explained. “If you leave the ritual open,  _ lots _ of them can cross over. And they won’t be as pleasant as  _ your _ incubus.”   
Tommie felt dread in the pit of her stomach.   
“You’ve unleashed  _ literal _ evil on the world. You might’ve triggered an apocalypse.”   
  
Tommie couldn’t stop thinking about what Desiree said when she visited the salon to get her hair fixed. Of course, the lady cutting it had something to say about the chop. But Tommie left with what was a  _ decent _ haircut, at the very least. Too short for her taste, but it would grow back.   
She kept staring at it in the cracked bathroom mirror when she got home, running her fingers through it and lamenting that it’d been cut off for nothing.   
The ritual didn’t even work. Desiree was just being paranoid.   
The fact was that she’d lost Trevor for good.   
And if there were some slim chance that she might find him again, she’d just keep trying.   
  
When Tommie got in bed for the night, she had a hard time falling asleep.    
She tossed and turned for what felt like hours- and apparently  _ was _ hours. She checked the time and ended up scrolling endlessly through social media in hopes of lulling herself to sleep.   
This wasn’t working…   
Tommie blacked out her screen at 1:37 in the morning, and set her phone beside her pillow with a sigh. She turned toward the wall beside her bed and, on a whim, ran her fingers through her hair in a gentle stroke.   
Soothing.   
Like how it had been when Trevor did it.   
So she just kept doing it, until she was no longer awake.   
  
Her breath hitched when she opened her eyes. Standing in the hallway outside of her room. The black haze over her vision was reminiscent of sleep paralysis- was she still sleeping?   
Tommie took a step toward her bed.   
Heavy, sluggish, yet also weightless; like trying to run underwater with the additional feeling of being pulled  _ backward  _ by her shoulders.   
Tommie had to brace herself with her hands on either side of her bedroom door’s frame.   
She pulled herself forward, trying to break free of the miasma.   
This was different from before. She felt threatened.    
“ _ Stop! _ ” She thought she said the word, but her mouth never opened.   
She was released from the hold, and stumbled forward into her room. She slammed her door shut behind her and locked it- as if that would do anything to help. Any minuscule sense of security was, at the very least,  _ a  _ sense of security.   
Tommie got back into her bed and cocooned herself in her blanket.   
It was over. She was gonna be fine. It was over. She was gonna be fine. It-   
  
The floor creaked near her closet.   
Without thinking, Tommie jolted upright to look out at the dark room.   
She saw shadows in the shape of people. Too many to count. All tall and slender, standing absolutely still with their arms at their sides. Featureless, yet all staring directly at her.   
She blinked, and they were closer.   
  
“- _ GET OUT! _ ” Tommie shrieked herself awake, jolting upright in her bed.   
She could hear birds chirping outside along with the sound of Del Perro Blvd’s traffic.   
She picked her phone from where she’d left it beside her pillow- 9:17 in the morning.   
“Overslept,” she muttered under her breath and got out of bed. She was late to call in sick again, hopefully she could bullshit her manager into thinking it was  _ that _ bad of a flu.   
Her body felt sore. She must’ve been tensed all night from the stupid nightmare.    
Maybe she’d schedule a massage or something...   
  
When she stepped into the bathroom, she undressed to get into the shower.   
Maybe some hot water would help relax the…   
She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.   
“Oh my  _ god… _ ”   
Hand shaped bruises on both of her shoulders.    
That wasn’t just a nightmare.    
That was what she’d released when she didn’t close the ritual.   
The demons had spotted her first, and were likely to spread beyond the walls of her apartment to run free.   
If there were demons in the world, that meant Trevor might be one of them.   
_ ‘You’ve unleashed literal evil on the world.” _   
Tommie’s expression shifted into anger at her own reflection.    
No, not anger… Resolve.   
_ ‘You might’ve triggered an apocalypse.’ _   
“... I don’t fucking care.”   



	18. Forever

She really fucked herself, and everyone else, for lack of a better term.  
It bordered on impossible just to sleep for the following few nights  
Even worse, she had to show up to work and feign ignorance, while more stories of bizarre occurrences appeared on the news every few hours. Each headline was more horrible than the last.  
Fires without clear causation, people with dead-eyed expressions walking into burning buildings, public suicides- both individuals and groups, people mutilating themselves in the streets for all to see. Some of these occurrences were, unfortunately, caught on live broadcast.  
Reporters outside of churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques were reporting full capacity at every mass. Some were even rioting just to get inside and make peace with their respective deities in what many were describing as ‘end times’."  
It had spread out of San Andreas and reached mainland America. Spreading like wildfire with no end in sight.  
  
“Hey, T!”  
Tommie turned when she heard her supervisor call for her. She’d been folding shirts to put on display. She saw her coworkers at the registers.  
“We’re holding a staff meeting really quick! Everybody’s gotta listen!”  
“Coming!” Tommie called and headed toward the others.  
“Alright, before I get started, is anyone at home acting strange?” Her supervisor, Marla, started. “Anyone. Parents, your kids, brothers, sisters, roommates, spouses-- anyone you live with. Are they acting strangely?”  
She looked between the employees on shift, and received no answer.  
“Good,” Marla continued. “Listen, we’re closing the store for a while until the riots stop.”  
Looks and groans of annoyance.  
Loss of time meant loss of pay.  
“I know, I know,” Marla continued. “But with everything happening, it’s for _your_ safety to stay home and hunker down for a while. We haven’t had anyone come in all day today. And I got the OK from management to shut the place down starting now. So let’s get to closing, and everyone can go home.”  
  
Tommie was jittery, to say the least, while she helped close the store.  
One of the final steps was to shutter the front.  
She watched a group of people run past the window, in a clear panic, when the steel shutter was almost fully closed.  
Then, one man calmly walking in the same direction.  
He spotted Tommie behind the window and stared at her with a dead-eyed look.  
The grate reached the floor, and Tommie released the control switch while she looked back at the stranger.  
He smashed his face into the glass, and she jumped away from it. Again and again, until she heard the pop of his nose breaking against the glass. Blood spurted down his shirt but he kept smashing his head into the glass- even when it started to crack.  
Tommie quickly moved away from the window, passing up her manager who was counting the money in the register. “I’m getting the fuck out of here,” she said, trying to keep calm in spite of knowing this was all her fault.  
It took the manager a second to even react. “Wait, Tommie-!”  
By then, she’d already been striding through the back area of the store, heading for the emergency exit.  
Car keys at the ready before she even stepped outside, Tommie quickly got into her car and sped home.  
  
She had to do something about this- if she could.  
The book was still beside her in the passenger seat.  
She could try to close the ritual. At the very least, it would close the doorway. Send the demons back, if possible.  
When she parked out in front of her building, she hurried inside before anyone spotted her.  
The salon downstairs was closed- just as most other businesses were in this unforeseen, terrifying crisis.  
She ran upstairs at full speed and hid from street view around a corner.

Inside the apartment was ground zero. She had to look at how to fix this before she entered.   
_It's the next page_ , she actually slapped herself. _Fucking idiot._  
She tabbed the page with her thumb, unlocking the apartment and entering to see that it had been vandalized while she was away. The demons had torn the place apart.  
Her TV had been ripped off the wall and was lying face-down on the floor. Likely destroyed. The couch was pushed backward, her aloe plant was on the floor and the pot was cracked.   
Her kitchen was in complete disarray. The drawers had been emptied and her silverware was scattered all over the floor. Plates shattered on the hardwood floor.  
She was worried about the rest of the place if just the entry looked like this.   
  
"Okay…" She murmured, trying to find resolve.  
The apartment seemed empty. That was the only upper hand she had right then.   
She shoved the couch off of where the circle had been scrubbed off the floor. Where the black stain still…  
Gone. The stain was gone.   
Trevor's remains had faded away. Did that mean she was too late?  
She had to try anyway.   
Tommie opened the book again, and began to read the closing rites out loud.   
The window loudly cracked at her side, and she just about jumped out of her skin.   
Hands shaking, she kept reading.   
But she only got three words further before the window shattered inward.   
Tommie shrieked and shielded her face from the glass that had been blasted toward her.  
With a hard shove, she was thrown across the room. Her body slammed into the wall hard enough to put a hole in the drywall.   
She cradled her arm. Her shoulder had been the point of impact. It wasn't broken, but-  
She heard pots and pans clanking against each other before they were thrown across the kitchen at her.   
Tommie brought her arms up around her head and let out a frightened yelp when one of the heavy cast iron pans smashed into the wall beside her.   
  
She heard the scrape of a knife on the kitchen counter, and pure adrenaline and self-preservation got her body to move. She stumbled down the hallway toward her bedroom. The door slammed shut in her face, so she withdrew into the bathroom. She slammed the door behind her and locked it with trembling hands.   
She was hyperventilating as she heard pounding on the door. She backed away from it and took cover inside of the bathtub.  
Things went quiet for a moment before there was a final loud bang at the door that made Tommie scream.  
  
All was silent. 

She dared to lift herself out of the empty tub, and saw that one of her kitchen knives had been stabbed clean through the center of the door.   
Thuds outside of the door- like things were being dropped.   
Were they gone?  
  
Tommie carefully, silently left the bathtub and stepped toward the door. She could escape the apartment if-  
She saw a shadow in the corner of her eye, and she fell back against the wall when she saw the reflection of a single, man-shaped shadow in the mirror.   
Tommie thought her heart stopped. She forgot to breathe. Dread filling her veins like ice. Expecting to die. Frozen with fear.   
But the shadow only stared, and slowly raised a hand in a still wave.   
"Trevor…" Burning tears sprung to her eyes and overflowed in an instant. " _Fuck-_ Trevor, I'm so sorry!" Her voice cracked, and the book dropped out of her hand as she moved closer to the mirror. Tears flowing freely by this point. Every time she blinked and cleared her vision, it blurred within seconds. "I was scared. I thought you were gonna kill me, I didn't know what to do. I panicked, I'm-- fuck!" She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "I'm so much more afraid without you. I'm so sorry. I don't care if you kill me anymore, I'd rather it be you than one of _them_ … I need you to be here with me. I need _you._ "  
He turned his head toward her, and her heart pounded in her chest with anticipation.   
She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look.  
But she felt a gentle hand run through her hair. A soft touch to her lips. A kiss.  
Tommie felt so much relief with the gesture, and managed an incredulous smile between the tears.  
She quickly grabbed her eyeliner out of the drawer under the sink, and uncapped it to write on the mirror. "What should we do?"  
She opened her eyes a few seconds later to see _'RUN'._  
"I can't until I close the ritual," she insisted. "I'm the one who let them out, I have to stop them."   
She allowed Trevor to use her hand again. _'RUN NOW CLOSE LATER NOT SAFE.'  
_ "Okay," she agreed. "Okay, we'll go. Can you keep 'em off me long enough to get out?"  
His reflection nodded once.  
  
Tommie picked up the book from the floor. She still had her keys in her pocket.   
She braced herself for whatever may happen in the fifteen feet from the bathroom door, to the exit.   
She cautiously opened the bathroom door and peered out. She was jerked backwards into the bathroom just before something fell in front of her.  
A knife was now jammed into the floor where she'd peeked out. Trevor had pulled her out of its path.   
She felt sick with nerves when she saw every knife she owned on the hallway ceiling. Blades down, held up by invisible force.   
She couldn't get around it.   
She had to make a break for it.   
_  
Alright, Trev_ , she thought. _I'm counting on you._ _  
  
_ She bolted out of the bathroom as quickly as she could, using the book to protect her head as she ran. Loud thuds and clatters around her as knives fell from the ceiling and into the floor.  
A sharp, slicing pain on her left calf and she knew she'd been cut. She yelped in pain, but she kept moving, swinging the door open and throwing herself out into the hallway. Trevor slammed the door behind her as she collided with the wall.   
Panting, trying to catch her breath, making sure she wasn't severely injured. The cut wasn't too deep that she would need serious medical attention. She would've been worse off if she hadn't worn jeans today. The thick denim must've reduced some of the force. Thank God she hadn't recently sharpened those knives.   
"Let's go," she uttered, holding tightly to the hand rail as she limped down the stairs. Car keys at the ready.   
She smelled something burning. A glance at the salon door's window and she saw that something inside had caught fire. It would spread quickly with all of the chemicals inside.   
  
Tommie kept moving, stepping outside to suck in a breath of air- only to smell more burning.   
She could see smoke in several distant areas. Sirens everywhere. Screams filling any silence all around her. Cars driving erratically down Del Perro.   
How did everything get so much worse so quickly?  
Tommie hurriedly limped toward her car and got into the driver's seat. With shaky hands, she fished her phone out of her pocket and called her mom.  
 _"Tommie!"_ Lita gasped on the other side. _"Where are you? Are you okay? Everyone's going insane!"  
_ "Are you home?" Tommie ignored the questions. She cared more to make sure her mother was safe.  
 _"I'm home,"_ Lita Confirmed. _"It's hell out there, what the fuck is happening?"  
_ "Stay inside," Tommie ordered. "Lock everything, stay away from the windows and don't let anyone in! I'll come get you, okay?"  
She couldn't process what her mom was asking now. Too wrapped up in knowing this was all on her.   
"I'm so sorry, Mom," she said without thought. Speaking over her. "I love you."  
She ended the call, then reached for her hoodie in the back seat. She tore off a sleeve and tightly wrapped it around the cut on her leg to slow the bleeding.   
"Trevor?" She quietly called. Still doubting that he was really back.   
The comforting touch to her hair reassured her.  
"I fucked up. I fucked up really bad," she searched her glove compartment and found a pen. She put the tip to her bare arm. "Can I fix this?"  
 _'YES'_ appeared on her forearm in blue ink.   
"I need you to help me. _Please_. Please, help me put them back."  
The word was circled. He agreed to help.   
"It's you and me," she nodded, pausing for a moment to start her car. She'd get Lita, take her somewhere safe to hide, then return to Los Santos to try and close the ritual once more. Or die trying. "You and me, Trev. Forever, right?"  
She allowed him to write once more, and saw _'MY ROSA'_ and _'FOREVER'_ written on her arm before she felt a touch to her cheek.   
  
This was, all along, how he confessed love for her. It took her this long to realize that.   
  
"Are you gonna kill me someday?" She had to ask. "The way an incubus does?"  
An unrecognizable string of letters appeared next, followed by _'NAME'.  
_ She tried to pronounce the foreign word.  
He'd given her his real name.  
An offering of power over him. A sign that he knew there had to be balance between them.  
Tommie felt her eyes welling up again. A sense of warmth in her chest when she realized that she was truly valuable to him. That everything between them had been building up to this.  
If he was in this for the long haul, then so was she.  
"Forever, then." She agreed, then took off toward Rockford Hills.


End file.
